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Primary Submission Category: Structural factors
Resilience as a Blessing, not a Choice: How Black Men and Women Cope with Residential Segregation in Adolescence on Cardiometabolic Risk in Adulthood
Authors: Ariayana Harrell,
Presenting Author: Ariayana Harrell*
Structural racism shapes unequal access to power, opportunities, and resources, using race/ethnicity (a social construct upheld by racial stratification) to produce large Black-White health disparities through one manifestation, residential segregation (measured using proportion same race neighborhoods), reflecting segregated patterns of concentrated disadvantage by racialized social status and rooted in the historical legacy of enslavement. Evidence suggests neighborhood-level racial inequality limits social cohesion among Black adults. Still, we lack evidence of how within-race sex differences drive health disparities and resilience, and if the timing of this exposure varies health impacts. This study tests whether social cohesion mediates the association between neighborhood disadvantage and Black people’s cardiometabolic risk (CMR), an indicator of stress-related physiological dysfunction. Neighborhood disadvantage among Black adults, a consequence of residential segregation proliferating stress, and social cohesion, a psychosocial mechanism buffering stress, can be used to link residential segregation to health outcomes by offloading stress with neighbors. Using data from Waves I and V of Add Health (N = 1,087), I employ sex-stratified structural equation modeling to assess the relationship between residential segregation and CMR among Black adults through social cohesion and concentrated disadvantage. Results show little evidence that residential segregation during adolescence is associated with elevated CMR in adulthood. Results reveal strong evidence for concentrated disadvantage as a key mechanism but weak evidence for within-race sex differences. These findings provide new insights into the phenomena linking racialized neighborhood deprivation to health across the life course to understand how Black adults become resilient in the face of structural oppression.