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      Family Income Reduces Risk of Obesity for White but Not Black Children

      research-article
      1 , 2 , 3 , 4
      Children
      MDPI
      obesity, body mass index, socioeconomic status, income, ethnic groups, Blacks, ethnicity

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          Abstract

          Background: Although the protective effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on obesity and cardiovascular disease are well established, these effects may differ across racial and ethnic groups. Aims: Using a national sample, this study investigated racial variation in the association between family income and childhood obesity in White and Black families. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), 2003–2004, a nationally representative survey in the United States. This analysis included 76,705 children 2–17 years old who were either White ( n = 67,610, 88.14%) or Black ( n = 9095, 11.86%). Family income to needs ratio was the independent variable. Childhood obesity was the outcome. Race was the focal moderator. Logistic regression was used for data analysis. Results: Overall, higher income to needs ratio was protective against childhood obesity. Race, however, interacted with income to needs ratio on odds of childhood obesity, indicating smaller effects for Black compared to White families. Race stratified logistic regressions showed an association between family income and childhood obesity for White but not Black families. Conclusions: The protective effect of income against childhood obesity is smaller for Blacks than Whites. Merely equalizing population access to SES and economic resources would not be sufficient for elimination of racial disparities in obesity and related cardiovascular disease in the United States. Policies should go beyond access to SES and address structural barriers in the lives of Blacks which result in a diminished health return of very same SES resources for them. As the likely causes are multi-level barriers, multi-level interventions are needed to eliminate racial disparities in childhood obesity.

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          Racial Differences in Physical and Mental Health: Socio-economic Status, Stress and Discrimination.

          This article examines the extent to which racial differences in socio-economic status (SES), social class and acute and chronic indicators of perceived discrimination, as well as general measures of stress can account for black-white differences in self-reported measures of physical and mental health. The observed racial differences in health were markedly reduced when adjusted for education and especially income. However, both perceived discrimination and more traditional measures of stress are related to health and play an incremental role in accounting for differences between the races in health status. These findings underscore the need for research efforts to identify the complex ways in which economic and non-economic forms of discrimination relate to each other and combine with socio-economic position and other risk factors and resources to affect health.
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            Racial residential segregation: A fundamental cause of racial disparities in health

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              Racial/ethnic discrimination and health: findings from community studies.

              The authors review the available empirical evidence from population-based studies of the association between perceptions of racial/ethnic discrimination and health. This research indicates that discrimination is associated with multiple indicators of poorer physical and, especially, mental health status. However, the extant research does not adequately address whether and how exposure to discrimination leads to increased risk of disease. Gaps in the literature include limitations linked to measurement of discrimination, research designs, and inattention to the way in which the association between discrimination and health unfolds over the life course. Research on stress points to important directions for the future assessment of discrimination and the testing of the underlying processes and mechanisms by which discrimination can lead to changes in health.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Children (Basel)
                Children (Basel)
                children
                Children
                MDPI
                2227-9067
                10 June 2018
                June 2018
                : 5
                : 6
                : 73
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; assarish@ 123456ucla.edu ; Tel.: +1-734-232-0445
                [2 ]BRITE Center, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
                [3 ]Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
                [4 ]Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5054-6250
                Article
                children-05-00073
                10.3390/children5060073
                6025246
                29890778
                84fded1a-23aa-4a41-bc63-d11ae48b9add
                © 2018 by the author.

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 27 April 2018
                : 04 June 2018
                Categories
                Article

                obesity,body mass index,socioeconomic status,income,ethnic groups,blacks,ethnicity

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