Working Paper: NBER ID: w23622
Authors: Diane Alexander; Janet Currie
Abstract: Higher asthma rates are one of the more obvious ways that health inequalities between African American and other children are manifested beginning in early childhood. In 2010, black asthma rates were double non-black rates. Some but not all of this difference can be explained by factors such as a higher incidence of low birth weight (LBW) among blacks; however, even conditional on LBW, blacks have a higher incidence of asthma than others. Using a unique data set based on the health records of all children born in New Jersey between 2006 and 2010, we show that when we split the data by whether or not children live in a “black” zip code, this racial difference in the incidence of asthma among LBW children entirely disappears. All LBW children in these zip codes, regardless of race, have a higher incidence of asthma. Our results point to the importance of residential segregation and neighborhoods in explaining persistent racial health disparities.
Keywords: asthma; racial disparities; residential segregation
JEL Codes: I14; R23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| residential segregation (R23) | asthma prevalence (I14) |
| race (J15) | low birth weight (LBW) (J13) |
| low birth weight (LBW) (J13) | asthma prevalence (I14) |
| neighborhood characteristics (R23) | asthma prevalence (I14) |
| low birth weight (LBW) + race (J15) | asthma prevalence in black zip codes (R23) |
| neighborhood context (R23) | racial disparity in asthma prevalence (I14) |
| LBW children in black zip codes (I32) | higher asthma risks (I14) |
| neighborhood improvements (R23) | benefit for all children in black zip codes (I24) |