Residential Segregation Sociology

Health inequities among racial minorities are prominent and persistent and various forms of racism may be one of the important causes of these inequities. Cultural racism can be defined as negative images, stereotypes, and prejudice related to certain cultural group, for example, negative stereotypes of African American as unintelligent, lazy, living off welfare, and prone to violence. Whereas, interpersonal discrimination is directly perceived discriminatory treatment at individual-level due to belonging to certain racial and ethnic identity, for example, being rude to a person because he or she belonged to certain racial and ethnic identity (Williams & Mohammed, 2013). Whereas, structural racism include macro-level systems, social forces,

Although racial segregation has been illegal since the Fair Housing Act of 1968, it is still a major problem in the United States (Kramer & Houge, 2009). Some of the process through which residential segregation affects health outcomes in marginalized population are related to schools and neighborhood quality, employment opportunities, environmental pollution, availability of infrastructure and services such as hospitals, grocery stores. The effect of residential segregation on health exist even after removing individual level racial discrimination (Diez Roux & Mair, 2010 and Kramer & Houge,

In addition, they are more likely to experience illegal actions by their employees such as refusal to pay. These experiences are associated with numerous health problems. In addition, evidence shows that immigrants often work in occupations without insurance benefits (Gee & Ford, 2011). Moreover, the immigration policy prohibits access to healthcare resources available in the country. For example, in order to utilize services from Medicaid the person need to provide documentation of citizenship of the United States. This requirement may have contributed to a low insurance coverage among the noncitizens. Similarly, The 2010 Affordable Care Act excludes the undocumented population from utilizing the service and imposes restrictions on documented immigrants (Gee & Ford, 2011). These evidences suggest that legislation can affect immigrants’ health not only directly through limiting access to healthcare services but also indirectly through a climate of fear even among those legally eligible to receive services. These broader anti-immigrant climate can further contribute to experiences with discrimination, stress, and illness (Gee & Ford, 2011 and Willimas et al,