Browsing by Author "Read, Jen'nan Ghazal"

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    Disaggregating Heterogeneity among Non-Hispanic Whites: Evidence and Implications for U.S. Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities.
    (Population research and policy review, 2021-02) Read, Jen'nan Ghazal; Lynch, Scott M; West, Jessica S
    Research has made strides in disaggregating health data among racial/ethnic minorities, but less is known about the extent of diversity among Whites. Using logistic regression modeling applied to data on respondents aged 40+ from the 2008 to 2016 American Community Survey, we disaggregated the non-Hispanic White population by ancestry and other racial/ethnic groups (non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian, and Hispanic) by common subgroupings and examined heterogeneity in disability. Using logistic regression models predicting six health outcome measures, we compared the spread of coefficients for each of the large racial/ethnic groups and all subgroupings within these large categories. The results revealed that health disparities within the White population are almost as large as disparities within other racial groups. In fact, when Whites were disaggregated by ancestry, mean health appeared to be more varied among Whites than between Whites and members of other racial/ethnic groups in many cases. Compositional changes in the ancestry of Whites, particularly declines in Whites of western European ancestry and increases in Whites of eastern European and Middle Eastern ancestry, contribute to this diversity. Together, these findings challenge the oft-assumed notion that Whites are a homogeneous group and indicate that the aggregate White category obscures substantial intra-ethnic heterogeneity in health.
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    Immigration and health among non-Hispanic whites: The impact of arrival cohort and region of birth.
    (Social science & medicine (1982), 2020-02) Read, Jen'nan Ghazal; West, Jessica S; Kamis, Christina
    Immigration is central to our understanding of U.S. racial and ethnic health disparities, yet relatively little is known about the health of white immigrants - a group whose ethnic origins have become increasingly diverse. To the extent that whites are included in social stratification research, they are typically used as the reference category for gauging health inequities, with little attention to diversity among them. This study addresses this question using nationally representative data from the American Community Survey (2008-2017). We disaggregate non-Hispanic whites by nativity, region of birth, and period of arrival in the U.S. and examine differences in physical disability among adults aged 40 and older (n = 12, 075, 638). The analysis finds that foreign-born whites have a slightly lower prevalence of disability than U.S.-born whites, and this varies by arrival cohort. Immigrants who arrived in the 1981-1990 and 1991-2000 cohorts have a smaller advantage over U.S.-born whites than immigrants in the earlier and later cohorts. Compositional changes in the region of birth of white immigrants, especially the influx of eastern Europeans and Middle Easterners during the 1980s and 1990s, explained this variation. These findings challenge the oft-assumed notion that whites are a monolithic group and highlight growing intra-ethnic heterogeneity that is obscured by the aggregate category. Our findings also suggest that the standard practice of using whites as the reference for benchmarking health inequities may mask health inequities not only among them, but also between whites and other racial and ethnic populations.