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Structural Intersectionality as a New Direction for Health Disparities Research

2021/08/06 by Patricia Homan, Tyson H. Brown, Brittany King +1 · 18 citations
Social Sciences · Health Professions · #Health disparities and outcomes #Racial and Ethnic Identity Research #Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations

paper · doi:10.1177/00221465211032947

Abstract

This article advances the field by integrating insights from intersectionality perspectives with the emerging literatures on structural racism and structural sexism—which point to promising new ways to measure systems of inequality at a macro level—to introduce a structural intersectionality approach to population health. We demonstrate an application of structural intersectionality using administrative data representing macrolevel structural racism, structural sexism, and income inequality in U.S. states linked to individual data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to estimate multilevel models (N = 420,644 individuals nested in 76 state-years) investigating how intersecting dimensions of structural oppression shape health. Analyses show that these structural inequalities: (1) vary considerably across U.S. states, (2) intersect in numerous ways but do not strongly or positively covary, (3) individually and jointly shape health, and (4) are most consistently associated with poor health for black women. We conclude by outlining an agenda for future research on structural intersectionality and health.

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