Spatial and spatio-temporal statistical implications for measuring structural racism: A review of three widely used residential segregation measures

Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol. 2024 Aug:50:100678. doi: 10.1016/j.sste.2024.100678. Epub 2024 Jul 20.

Abstract

Social determinants of health are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning and quality of life outcomes and risks - these social determinants of health often aid in explaining the racial and ethnic health inequities present in the United States (US). The root cause of these social determinants of health has been tied to structural racism, and residential segregation is one such domain of structural racism that allows for the operationalization of the geography of structural racism. This review focuses on three residential segregation measures that are often utilized to capture segregation as a function of race/ethnicity, income, and simultaneously race/ethnicity and income. Empirical findings related to the spatial and spatio-temporal heterogeneity of these residential segregation measures are presented. We also discuss some of the implications of utilizing these three residential segregation measures.

Keywords: Bayesian; Population health; Residential segregation; Spatial heterogeneity; Spatio-temporal heterogeneity; Structural racism.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Ethnicity / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Racism / statistics & numerical data
  • Residence Characteristics / statistics & numerical data
  • Residential Segregation
  • Social Determinants of Health
  • Social Segregation*
  • Spatial Analysis
  • Spatio-Temporal Analysis
  • United States / epidemiology