IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v136-137y2015ip193-199.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Black lives matter: Differential mortality and the racial composition of the U.S. electorate, 1970–2004

Author

Listed:
  • Rodriguez, Javier M.
  • Geronimus, Arline T.
  • Bound, John
  • Dorling, Danny

Abstract

Excess mortality in marginalized populations could be both a cause and an effect of political processes. We estimate the impact of mortality differentials between blacks and whites from 1970 to 2004 on the racial composition of the electorate in the US general election of 2004 and in close statewide elections during the study period. We analyze 73 million US deaths from the Multiple Cause of Death files to calculate: (1) Total excess deaths among blacks between 1970 and 2004, (2) total hypothetical survivors to 2004, (3) the probability that survivors would have turned out to vote in 2004, (4) total black votes lost in 2004, and (5) total black votes lost by each presidential candidate. We estimate 2.7 million excess black deaths between 1970 and 2004. Of those, 1.9 million would have survived until 2004, of which over 1.7 million would have been of voting-age. We estimate that 1 million black votes were lost in 2004; of these, 900,000 votes were lost by the defeated Democratic presidential nominee. We find that many close state-level elections over the study period would likely have had different outcomes if voting age blacks had the mortality profiles of whites. US black voting rights are also eroded through felony disenfranchisement laws and other measures that dampen the voice of the US black electorate. Systematic disenfranchisement by population group yields an electorate that is unrepresentative of the full interests of the citizenry and affects the chance that elected officials have mandates to eliminate health inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodriguez, Javier M. & Geronimus, Arline T. & Bound, John & Dorling, Danny, 2015. "Black lives matter: Differential mortality and the racial composition of the U.S. electorate, 1970–2004," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 136, pages 193-199.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:136-137:y:2015:i::p:193-199
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.04.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615002439
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.04.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schneider, Anne & Ingram, Helen, 1993. "Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 334-347, June.
    2. Geronimus, A.T. & Hicken, M. & Keene, D. & Bound, J., 2006. ""Weathering" and age patterns of allostatic load scores among blacks and whites in the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(5), pages 826-833.
    3. Valentino, Nicholas A. & Hutchings, Vincent L. & White, Ismail K., 2002. "Cues that Matter: How Political Ads Prime Racial Attitudes During Campaigns," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 75-90, March.
    4. Lael R. Keiser & Peter R. Mueser & Seung‐Whan Choi, 2004. "Race, Bureaucratic Discretion, and the Implementation of Welfare Reform," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 314-327, April.
    5. Jessica Lavariega Monforti & Gabriel R. Sanchez, 2010. "The Politics of Perception: An Investigation of the Presence and Sources of Perceptions of Internal Discrimination Among Latinos," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(1), pages 245-265, March.
    6. Purtle, J., 2013. "Felon disenfranchisement in the United States: A health equity perspective," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 103(4), pages 632-637.
    7. Blakely, T.A. & Kennedy, B.P. & Kawachi, I., 2001. "Socioeconomic inequality in voting participation and self-rated health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(1), pages 99-104.
    8. Douglas Massey & Nancy Denton, 1989. "Hypersegregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation Along Five Dimensions," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(3), pages 373-391, August.
    9. Francesco Trebbi & Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina, 2008. "Electoral Rules and Minority Representation in U.S. Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 325-357.
    10. Fowler, Anthony, 2013. "Electoral and Policy Consequences of Voter Turnout: Evidence from Compulsory Voting in Australia," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 8(2), pages 159-182, February.
    11. Nicholas A. Valentino & David O. Sears, 2005. "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(3), pages 672-688, July.
    12. Geronimus, A.T., 2000. "To mitigate, resist, or undo: Addressing structural influences on the health of urban populations," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 90(6), pages 867-872.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roth, David L. & Skarupski, Kimberly A. & Crews, Deidra C. & Howard, Virginia J. & Locher, Julie L., 2016. "Distinct age and self-rated health crossover mortality effects for African Americans: Evidence from a national cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 12-20.
    2. Gollust, Sarah E. & Haselswerdt, Jake, 2023. "Who does COVID-19 hurt most? Perceptions of unequal impact and political implications," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    3. Rodriguez, Javier M., 2018. "Health disparities, politics, and the maintenance of the status quo: A new theory of inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 36-43.
    4. Shervin Assari & James Smith & Ritesh Mistry & Mehdi Farokhnia & Mohsen Bazargan, 2019. "Substance Use among Economically Disadvantaged African American Older Adults; Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-16, May.
    5. Bilal, Usama & Knapp, Emily A. & Cooper, Richard S., 2018. "Swing voting in the 2016 presidential election in counties where midlife mortality has been rising in white non-Hispanic Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 33-38.
    6. Giacomo DiPasquale & Matthew Gomies & Javier M. Rodriguez, 2021. "Race and class patterns of income inequality during postrecession periods," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2812-2823, November.
    7. Kawachi, Ichiro & Subramanian, S.V., 2018. "Social epidemiology for the 21st century," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 240-245.
    8. Mershon, Carol, 2020. "What effect do local political elites have on infant and child death? Elected and chiefly authority in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    9. Ye, Wei & Rodriguez, Javier M., 2021. "Highly vulnerable communities and the Affordable Care Act: Health insurance coverage effects, 2010–2018," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arline Geronimus & John Bound & Annie Ro, 2014. "Residential Mobility Across Local Areas in the United States and the Geographic Distribution of the Healthy Population," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 777-809, June.
    2. Lawrence D. Bobo & Camille Z. Charles, 2009. "Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the Obama Candidacy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 621(1), pages 243-259, January.
    3. Ang, Desmond, 2018. "Do 40-Year-Old Facts Still Matter? Long-Run Effects of Federal Oversight under the Voting Rights Act," Working Paper Series rwp18-033, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Adam M. Butz, 2016. "Theorizing About Poverty and Paternalism in Suburban America: The Case of Welfare Sanctions," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(2), pages 129-140, June.
    5. Anders Larrabee Sonderlund & Mia Charifson & Antoinette Schoenthaler & Traci Carson & Natasha J Williams, 2022. "Racialized economic segregation and health outcomes: A systematic review of studies that use the Index of Concentration at the Extremes for race, income, and their interaction," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-27, January.
    6. Reeves, Aaron & Mackenbach, Johan P., 2019. "Can inequalities in political participation explain health inequalities?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 234(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Gollust, Sarah E. & Eboh, Ijeoma & Barry, Colleen L., 2012. "Picturing obesity: Analyzing the social epidemiology of obesity conveyed through US news media images," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(10), pages 1544-1551.
    8. Andrea Bernini & Giovanni Facchini & Marco Tabellini & Cecilia Testa, 2024. "Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls," Economics Series Working Papers 1035, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Maddison, Jonathan & Watts, Richard, 2011. "The technological fix as a frame in media debates about tailpipe emissions," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 294-303.
    10. Fritz Sager & Yvan Rielle, 2013. "Sorting through the garbage can: under what conditions do governments adopt policy programs?," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 46(1), pages 1-21, March.
    11. Bruch, Sarah K. & van der Naald, Joseph & Gornick, Janet C., 2022. "Poverty Reduction through Federal and State Policy Mechanisms: Variation Over Time and Across the U.S. States," SocArXiv jz5xp, Center for Open Science.
    12. David H Chae & Sean Clouston & Mark L Hatzenbuehler & Michael R Kramer & Hannah L F Cooper & Sacoby M Wilson & Seth I Stephens-Davidowitz & Robert S Gold & Bruce G Link, 2015. "Association between an Internet-Based Measure of Area Racism and Black Mortality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-12, April.
    13. Alberto Alesina & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2011. "Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross Section of Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1872-1911, August.
    14. Sirois, Catherine, 2020. "The strain of sons' incarceration on mothers’ health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    15. Ron Johnston & James Forrest & Michael Poulsen, 2002. "Are there Ethnic Enclaves/Ghettos in English Cities?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(4), pages 591-618, April.
    16. Hill, Terrence D. & Ellison, Christopher G. & Burdette, Amy M. & Taylor, John & Friedman, Katherine L., 2016. "Dimensions of religious involvement and leukocyte telomere length," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 168-175.
    17. Ghazi Falah, 1996. "Living Together Apart: Residential Segregation in Mixed Arab-Jewish Cities in Israel," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 33(6), pages 823-857, June.
    18. Ni, Xinwen, 2019. "Voting for Health Insurance Policy: the U.S. versus Europe," IRTG 1792 Discussion Papers 2019-012, Humboldt University of Berlin, International Research Training Group 1792 "High Dimensional Nonstationary Time Series".
    19. Frank R. Baumgartner & Christine Mahoney, 2008. "Forum Section: The Two Faces of Framing," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(3), pages 435-449, September.
    20. Chang, Virginia W., 2006. "Racial residential segregation and weight status among US adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 1289-1303, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:136-137:y:2015:i::p:193-199. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.