Abstract
There is a large sociological literature on racial- class-, and economically- based segregation in the United States and there is some evidence that residential segregation by income may have deleterious health consequences for residents of large U.S. cities. The health consequences of segregation in Canadian metropolitan areas, however, remain unknown and the comparison with the U.S. is always compelling. In this paper, we investigate the hypothesis that residential segregation by income may be associated with mortality in Canadian and U.S. metropolitan areas. Given the strong relationship between individual level socioeconomic status and health, it follows that metropolitan areas which isolate individuals economically could produce conditions that severely limit the life chances and therefore the health chances of the most vulnerable. To investigate the association between residential segregation by income and population health, we examined the relationship between working-age mortality and Jargowsky's (1996) neighbourhood sorting index (NSI) for a large group of North American metropolitan areas. We found a relationship between increased segregation and increased mortality for U.S. metropolitan areas but no such relationship for Canadian metropolitan areas. We also determined that income segregation could not be considered in isolation from income inequality – that, in effect, income inequality provides the propensity for meaningful segregation to occur. We further demonstrated the importance of considering both income inequality and income segregation together, especially when the analysis is intended to compare metropolitan areas. We conclude with a discussion of the need for an improved measure of segregation to better reflect the theoretical arguments for the relationship between concentration of poverty and affluence and population health.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acevedo-Garcia D., 2001: Zip code-level risk factors for tuberculosis: neighbourhood environment and residential segregation in New Jersey, 1985–1992. Am. J. Publ. Health, 91: 734–741.
Berkman L.F. and Syme L., 1979: Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: A nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. Am. J. Epidemiol., 109: 186–204.
Blau P.M., 1977: Heterogeneity and Inequality: A Primitive Theory of Social Structure. Free Press, New York, N.Y.
Cubbin C., LeClere F.B., Smith G.S., 2000: Socioeconomic status and injury mortality: Individual and neighbourhood determinants. J. Epidemiol. Comm. Health, 54: 517–524.
Dunn, J.R., forthcoming, 'Public Goods', Metropolitan Inequality, and the Social Production of Health. In: Drache D. and Sullivan T. (eds), Health Reform: Public Success, Private Failure, 2nd ed. McGill-Queen's University Press.
Farley R., Schuman H., Bianchi S., Colasanto D. and Hatchett S., 1978
Chocolate city, vanilla suburbs: Will the trend toward racially separate communities continue? Soc. Sci. Res., 7: 319–344.
Greenberg M. and Schneider D., 1996: Environmentally Devasted Neighbourhoods: Perceptions, Realities and Policies. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.
Guest A.M., Almgren G., and Hussey J.M., 1998: The ecology of race and socioeconomic distress: Infant and working age mortality in Chicago. Demography, 35: 23–34.
House J.S., Landis K.R., and Umberson D., 1988: Social relationships and health. Science 214: 540–545.
Jargowsky, P.A., 1996: Take the money and run: economic segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas. Am. Soc. Rev., 61: 984–998.
Jones K. and Duncan C., 1995: Individuals and their ecologies: Analysing the geography of chronic illness within a multilevel modelling framework. Health and Place, 1: 27–40.
Kaplan G.A., Pamuk E., Lynch J.W., Cohen R.D., and Balfour J.L., 1996: Income inequality and mortality in the United States: analysis of mortality and potential pathways. Brit. Med. J., 312: 999–1003.
Kawachi I., Kennedy B.P., Lochner S.M., and Prothrow-Stith D., 1997: Social capital, income inequality and mortality. Am. J. Publ. Health, 87: 1491–1498.
Leventhal T. and Brooks-Gunn J., 2000: The neighbourhoods they live in: The effects of neighbourhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. Psychol. Bull., 126: 309–337.
Ley D.F., 1993: Past elites and present gentry: Neighbourhoods of privilege in the inner city. In: Bourne L.S. and Ley D.F. (eds), The Changing Social Geography of Canadian Cities. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal.
Lynch J.W., Kaplan G.A., Pamuk E.R., Cohen R.D., Heck K.E., Balfour J.L. et al., 1998: Income inequality and mortality in metropolitan areas of the United States. Am. J. Publ. Health, 1998: 1074–1080.
Massey D.S., 1996: The age of extremes: Concentrated poverty and affluence in the twenty-first century. Demography, 33: 395–412.
Massey D.S., 1990: American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Am. J. Sociol., 95: 1153–1188.
Massey D.S. and Denton N.A., 1988: The dimensions of residential segregation. Soc. Forces, 67: 281–315.
Massey D.S., Gross A.B., and Eggers M.L., 1991: Segregation, the concentration of poverty, and the life chances of individuals. Soc. Sci. Res. 20: 397–420.
Massey D.S., White M.J., and Phua V.-C., 1996: The dimensions of segregation revisited. Soc. Meth. Res. 25: 172–206.
Myles J., Picot G. and Pyper W., 2000: Neighbourhood Inequality in Canadian Cities. Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, Statistics Canada, Ottawa.
Neter J., Wasserman W., and Kutner M.H., 1990: Applied Linear Statistical Models. Irwin, Boston, MA.
Orfield M., 1997: Metropolitics: A Regional Agenda for Community and Stability. Brookings Institution Press and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Washington, DC and Cambridge, MA.
Robert S.A., 1998: Community-level socioeconomic status effects on adult health. J. Health Soc. Behav., 39: 18–37.
Ross N.A., Wolfson M.C. and Dunn J.R., forthcoming: Why is mortality higher in unequal societies? Interpreting income inequality and mortality in Canada and the United States. In: Boyle, Curtis, Gatrell, Graham and Moore (eds), The Geography of Health Inequalities in the Developed World.
Ross N.A., Wolfson M.C., Dunn J.R., Berthelot J.-M., Kaplan G.A., and Lynch J.W., 2000: Relation between income inequality and mortality in Canada and the United States: Cross sectional assessment using census data and vital statistics. Brit. Med. J., 320: 898–902.
Sampson R.J., Raudenbush S.W., and Earls F., 1997: Neighbourhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277: 918–924.
Shouls S., Congdon P., Curtis S., 1996: Modelling inequality in reported long term illness in the U.K.: combining individual and area characteristics. J. Epidemiol. Comm. Health, 50: 366–376.
South S.J. and Crowder K.D., 1997: Escaping distressed neighborhoods: Individual, community, and metropolitan influences. Am. J. Soc., 102: 1040–1084.
Veenstra G., 2001: Social capital and health. ISUMA Can. J. Pol. Res., 2: 72–81.
Waitzman N.J. and Smith K.R., 1998: Separate but lethal: The effects of economic segregation on mortality in metropolitan America. Milbank Mem. Fund. Q., 76: 341–373.
Wilkinson R.G., 1992: Income distribution and life expectancy. Brit. Med. J., 301: 165–168.
Wilkinson R.G., 1996: Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality. Routledge, London.
Wilson W.J., 1987: The Truly Disadvantaged. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ross, N.A., Nobrega, K. & Dunn, J. Income segregation, income inequality and mortality in North American metropolitan areas. GeoJournal 53, 117–124 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015720518936
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015720518936