Journal article
The Association of School Racial Segregation with Health Among U.S. Youths: A Nationwide Longitudinal Study
Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities
08 Aug 2025
PMID: 40781219
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
School racial segregation, a key manifestation of structural racism, has been hypothesized to cause poorer health among Black individuals, contributing to racial health inequities across the life course. School segregation has been increasing in the past 30 years in the US. Few studies have examined the association between school racial segregation and children's health.
We linked school district-level segregation measures to individual-level panel data from the 1997-2001 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997. We included Black and White in-school children who reported self-rated health, body weight, and alcohol- and smoking-related behaviors. We fitted standard ordinary least squares (OLS) models (capturing between-person variation), then individual-level fixed effect (FE) models (capturing within-person variation) to reduce bias from any unmeasured confounding. All models were adjusted for individual-, neighborhood-, and district-level covariates.
Results from OLS models suggest that school segregation was associated with a later age of smoking initiation among Black youths (0.46; 95% CI 0.22, 0.71). Results from FE models suggest that school segregation was associated with worse self-reported health (- 3.9% points; 95% CI - 7.4, - 0.42) and a higher probability of ever smoking (3.2% points; 95% CI 0.67, 5.7) among Black youths. School segregation was not associated with White youths' health outcomes.
Increases in US school segregation may shape Black youths' health behaviors and well-being, laying the groundwork for poorer adult health. Policies to reduce school segregation may be beneficial for Black children's health and may reduce health inequities.
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Details
- Title
- The Association of School Racial Segregation with Health Among U.S. Youths: A Nationwide Longitudinal Study
- Creators
- Guangyi Wang - University of California, San FranciscoGabriel L Schwartz - University of California, San FranciscoMin Hee Kim - University of California, San FranciscoRita Hamad - University of California, San Francisco
- Publication Details
- Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities
- Publisher
- SPRINGER INT PUBL AG; CHAM
- Number of pages
- 13
- Grant note
- R01HL151638 / NHLBI NIH HHS U54CA267735 / NIH HHS
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel FIRST (Center for Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends); Urban Health Collaborative; Health Management and Policy
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001546008100001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105012581378
- Other Identifier
- 991022074173604721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health