inequality

Race and Income Gaps in Academic Qualifications and SAT/ACT Taking Shape Inequalities in College Enrollment

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This policy brief shows that inequalities in college enrollment start early in the process. Race- and income-based gaps in 10 key steps to enrollment (e.g., academic qualifications and SAT or ACT taking) lead to inequitable outcomes. This work has three key take-aways. First, gaps calculated using the V-statistic method differ from gaps calculated using the traditional binary approach, leading to a more nuanced understanding of the size of gaps. Second, gaps in academic qualifications are large and similar in size to gaps in college application, admission, and enrollment. Finally, gaps in academic qualifications and taking the SAT or ACT are the strongest predictors of gaps in the selectivity of eventual enrollment. Policymakers and practitioners interested in closing college enrollment gaps ought to identify interventions that specifically aim to address gaps early in the process.

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Empowering Students to Build Healthier Campus Sexual Cultures

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Most residential campuses today host hookup cultures that cause harm to student well-being. To enhance the student experience and protect them from harm, colleges and universities need to empower them to build healthier sexual cultures. Campuses can do so by giving students practical and theoretical knowledge, empowering marginalized populations on campus, and funding a large-scale, student-led campaign to shift the campus sexual culture.

How Religious Organizations Fail to Support Unaccompanied Indigenous Latinx Youth

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Restrictionist policies and anti-immigrant and anti-Latinx hostility in the United States undermine access to refugee resettlement, increasing immigrants’ political, economic, social, and health vulnerabilities. The assumption that other organizations, like churches, will step in where governments fail urges scholars and policy makers to focus on how these organizations shape unaccompanied minors’ integration. Churches are pillars of solidarity and support within immigrant communities serving as major sources of social and economic assistance for those in need. They also provide a recreational space for youth and spiritual uplift through religious activities. Yet, unaccompanied, undocumented Central American youth describe organizational practices that unwittingly perpetuate inequality within the Latinx community, and in turn, contribute to their incorporation “retraso” or setback. To address this, federal- and state-level governments should lift refugee bars and prioritize unaccompanied minor integration; thereby alleviating the burden on local level organizations. Local organizations should be attentive to organizational practices that do not promote the well-being of today’s newcomers.

Understanding the Role of Provider Racial Bias in Medical Training and Clinical Decision Making

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Medical students are often taught to associate race with disease as a method to diagnose and prescribe appropriate medical treatment. Unfortunately, this often leads to inaccurate and misleading assumptions related to race being used in medical decision-making. The role of provider bias and stereotyping in the clinical decision-making process have been extensively studied and suggested as possible contributors to racial health disparities experienced by Black men. Evidence also suggests that current cultural competency programs in medical school are non-inclusive and ineffective. In this brief, I outline a three-tiered approach to address provider bias and ensure that all students are exposed to racial bias training. Intentional efforts to address bias at the institutional level can influence the culture of medical education. Efforts by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) can serve as the model to better serve all communities.

Educator and School-based Personnel’s Advocacy for Undocumented Youth in K-12 Settings

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Undocumented youth face significant barriers to academic and social mobility along with significant isolation within the school context. Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.

The Importance of Anticipatory Stress in the Lives of People in Same-Sex Relationships

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Fears about the future, like other types of stress, can diminish well-being and increase anxiety. Minority populations uniquely anticipate challenges and hardships based on the stigmatization of themselves or of their relationships. Policymakers should not simply react to what is known to be stressful in the moment; they should also seek deeper understandings of stress experience within life course contexts, including the stress that people anticipate. Indeed, existing data suggest there may be public health benefits associated with policy changes that reduce the impact of “stress that awaits.” For example, the legal recognition of same-sex relationships is associated with better mental health among sexual minority persons—even if they did not get married. Still, some anticipate that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage will be reversed in the future, and this possibility can be a source of stress as well. By identifying anticipatory stressors, we expand our knowledge of people’s stress universes and better account for the cumulative stress burden that can lead to greater health disparities.

Criminal and Immigration Laws Shape Health Outcomes of Racial and Ethnic Minorities

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Over the last several decades, criminal and immigration laws in the United States have disproportionately burdened marginalized racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans and Latinos. This policy brief reviews the sociological and public health research on the health effects of various criminal and immigration laws, policies, and practices. We argue that scholars and policy makers should understand the law as a fundamental cause of health disparities operating through two broad mechanisms: (1) primary effects on those who hold a stigmatized legal status; and (2) spillover effects on racial and ethnic in-group members, regardless of their own legal status.  We conclude that the massive expansion of punitive legal control should be treated as a public health crisis. To address this, policy should reduce the material and stigmatic burdens of criminal and immigration statuses on those directly impacted, as well as their legally-unmarked families and communities.

Regional Economic Disparities Result from Rising National Income Inequality

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The economic fortunes of different regions of the United States have diverged markedly over the last 40 years. While these growing disparities are typically discussed as a regional problem, this research shows that more than half of the total divergence is attributable to rising income inequality at the national level. Growing regional disparities should be understood primarily as the spatially uneven consequences of national and global economic trends. Consequently, local attempts to promote economic development or to help economically struggling regions catch up are unlikely to substantially reduce the problem on their own. In addition to local efforts, economic policy at the national level should be designed with the explicit goal of promoting economic convergence among regions.