Income Inequality and Mortality in US Counties: Does Minority Racial Concentration Matter?
Diane K. McLaughlin, PhD and
C. Shannon Stokes, PhD
The authors are with the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology and the Population Research Institute, the Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Diane K. McLaughlin, PhD, 110C Armsby Bldg, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (e-mail: dkk{at}psu.edu).
This study examined (1) the relationship between income inequalityand mortality among all counties in the contiguous United Statesto ascertain whether the relationships found for states andmetropolitan areas extend to smaller geographic units and (2)the influence of minority racial concentration on the inequalitymortalitylinkage.
Methods. This county-level ecologic analysis used data fromthe Compressed Mortality Files and the US Census. Weighted leastsquares regression models of age-, sex-, and race-adjusted countymortality rates were estimated to examine the additive and interactiveeffects of income inequality and minority racial concentration.
Results. Higher income inequality at the county level was significantlyassociated with higher total mortality. Higher minority racialconcentration also was significantly related to higher mortalityand interacted with income inequality.
Conclusions. The relationship between income inequality andmortality is robust for counties in the United States. Minorityconcentration interacts with income inequality, resulting inhigher mortality in counties with low inequality and a highpercentage of Blacks than in counties with high inequality anda high percentage of Blacks.
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