Historical Redlining and Contemporary Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Life Expectancy.

While evidence suggests a durable relationship between redlining and population health, we currently lack an empirical account of how this historical act of racialized violence produced contemporary inequities. In this paper, we use a mediation framework to evaluate how redlining grades influenced l...

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Published in:Social Forces Vol. 102; no. 1; pp. 1 - 23
Main Authors: Graetz, Nick, Esposito, Michael
Format: Article
Published: Oxford University Press / USA Sep2023
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Sep2023
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      pub: Oxford University Press / USA
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        atl: Historical Redlining and Contemporary Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Life Expectancy.
      aug:
        au:
          Graetz, Nick
          Esposito, Michael
        affil:
          Department of Sociology, Princeton University
          Department of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis
      su:
        Homeowners' Loan Corp.
        Population health
        Institutional racism
        Life expectancy
        Working class
        Racism
        Equality
        Race discrimination
      sug:
        subj:
          Population health
          Institutional racism
          Life expectancy
          Working class
          Racism
          Equality
          Race discrimination
          Homeowners' Loan Corp.
      ab: While evidence suggests a durable relationship between redlining and population health, we currently lack an empirical account of how this historical act of racialized violence produced contemporary inequities. In this paper, we use a mediation framework to evaluate how redlining grades influenced later life expectancy and the degree to which contemporary racial disparities in life expectancy between Black working-class neighborhoods and White professional-class neighborhoods can be explained by past Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) mapping. Life expectancy gaps between differently graded tracts are driven by economic isolation and disparate property valuation which developed within these areas in subsequent decades. Still, only a small percent of a total disparity between contemporary Black and White neighborhoods is explained by HOLC grades. We discuss the role of HOLC maps in analyses of structural racism and health, positioning them as only one feature of a larger public–private project conflating race with financial risk. Policy implications include not only targeting resources to formerly redlined neighborhoods but also the larger project of dismantling racist theories of value that are deeply embedded in the political economy of place.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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