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Public Support for Sickle-Cell Disease Funding: Does Race Matter?

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Abstract

Despite the fact that sickle-cell disease (SCD) is perhaps the most “racialized” medical condition in the USA, very little is known about how “race” impacts public support for health policies related to the condition. We embedded an experiment within the 2011 Cooperative Congressional Election Study in order to assess perceptions about SCD among 1250 participants from diverse backgrounds and evaluate the extent to which these perceptions were associated with support for government spending on SCD-related benefits. We manipulated the racial phenotype of SCD advocates who requested additional government funding and asked participants to indicate how much the government should provide. Overall, participants expressed moderately positive attitudes about SCD, and there were no differences in funding support based on the race of the advocate. However, white participants supported less funding compared to nonwhite participants, even after adjusting for a number of demographic and attitudinal covariates. These findings suggest that a complex relationship between racial identification and implicit racism may shape public perceptions about SCD that negatively influences perceivers’ support for SCD-related policy.

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Notes

  1. We also observed the same pattern of results when 27 participants who were familiar with SCD were included in the analysis.

  2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this possibility.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in conjunction with the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The authors wish to acknowledge Rhoanne Esteban, Rosalina Mills, Ebonie Riley, and Morgan Thomas for their research assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD, 21250-0001, USA

    Shawn M. Bediako

  2. Departments of Political Science and Africana Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD, 21250-0001, USA

    Tyson King-Meadows

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  1. Shawn M. Bediako
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Correspondence to Shawn M. Bediako.

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Bediako, S.M., King-Meadows, T. Public Support for Sickle-Cell Disease Funding: Does Race Matter?. Race Soc Probl 8, 186–195 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-016-9173-x

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