Quantifying Separate and Unequal Racial-Ethnic Distributions of Neighborhood Poverty in Metropolitan America
Theresa L. Osypuk, Northeastern University, Boston
Sandro Galea, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor
Nancy McArdle, Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston
Urban Affairs Review - February 4, 2009 as doi:10.1177/1078087408331119
Abstract free at: http://uar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1078087408331119v2
“……..Researchers measuring racial inequality of neighborhood environment across metropolitan areas have traditionally used segregation measures; yet such measures are limited for incorporating a third axis of information, including neighborhood opportunity. Using Census 2000 tract-level data for the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, the authors introduce the interquartile-range overlap statistic to summarize the substantial separation of entire distributions of neighborhood environments between racial groups.
They find that neighborhood poverty distributions for minorities overlap only 27%, compared to the distributions for Whites. Furthermore, the separation of racial groups into neighborhoods of differing poverty rates is strongly correlated with racial residential segregation. The overlap statistic provides a straightforward, policy-relevant metric for monitoring progress toward achieving more equal environments of neighborhood opportunity space….”
[posted on PAHO/WHO Equity]
