Racial/Ethnic Residential Segregation and Perceived Discrimination: A Multilevel Investigation of Individual- and Institutional-Level Discrimination among U.S. - and Foreign-Born Blacks

Kellee White, Harvard School of Public Health
David Williams, Harvard School of Public Health

Racial/ethnic health disparities continue to persist across mortality and morbidity outcomes despite accounting for genetics and individual-level socioeconomic position. A growing body of literature suggests that the chronic exposure to racial discrimination is critical to understanding the disparities. Racial discrimination which is produced and maintained at the individual- and institutional-level has been shown to adversely affect the health of blacks. However, the joint effects of individual- and institutional-level racial discrimination are not clearly understood. This research seeks to characterize the relationship between individual-level (e.g. perceived discrimination) and institutional-level (e.g. residential segregation) discrimination. Further the analyses investigate whether the joint effect of individual- and institutional-level discrimination predict variations in self-reported health among U.S. - and foreign-born blacks. Given the multiple pathways by which discrimination may influence health outcomes, it is important to assess the role of individual-level discrimination within the larger context of institutional level discrimination.