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Racial/ethnic residential segregation and cardiovascular disease risk

  • Race + Ethnicity Disparities (K Watson, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

A growing body of research has examined whether racial/ethnic residential segregation contributes to health disparities, but recent findings in the literature, particularly with respect to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, have not been summarized. This review provides an overview of findings from studies of racial/ethnic residential segregation of non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics with CVD risk published between January 2011 and July 2014. The majority of studies of black segregation showed higher segregation was related to higher CVD risk, although relationships were less clear for certain outcomes. Relationships among Hispanics were more mixed and appeared to vary widely by factors such as gender, country of origin, racial identity, and acculturation. Implications for research on racial/ethnic disparities in CVD and lingering gaps in the literature are discussed as well.

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Funding

Sandra S. Albrecht received research support from the Population Research Infrastructure Program (R24 HD050924) awarded to the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kiarri N. Kershaw is supported by contracts N01-HC-95159 through N01-HC-95169 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health and by grants UL1-RR-024156 and UL1-RR-025005 from the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health.

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Conflict of Interest

Kiarri N. Kershaw and Sandra S. Albrecht declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 680 N Lake Shore, Suite 1400, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Kiarri N. Kershaw

  2. Department of Nutrition, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 137 E Franklin St, CB 8120, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516, USA

    Sandra S. Albrecht

Authors
  1. Kiarri N. Kershaw
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  2. Sandra S. Albrecht
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Correspondence to Kiarri N. Kershaw.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Race + Ethnicity Disparities

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Kershaw, K.N., Albrecht, S.S. Racial/ethnic residential segregation and cardiovascular disease risk. Curr Cardiovasc Risk Rep 9, 10 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12170-015-0436-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12170-015-0436-7

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