IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/demogr/v56y2019i2d10.1007_s13524-018-0756-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New Evidence of Skin Color Bias and Health Outcomes Using Sibling Difference Models: A Research Note

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Laidley

    (New York University)

  • Benjamin Domingue

    (Stanford University)

  • Piyapat Sinsub

    (Princeton University)

  • Kathleen Mullan Harris

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

  • Dalton Conley

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

In this research note, we use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to determine whether darker skin tone predicts hypertension among siblings using a family fixed-effects analytic strategy. We find that even after we account for common family background and home environment, body mass index, age, sex, and outdoor activity, darker skin color significantly predicts hypertension incidence among siblings. In a supplementary analysis using newly released genetic data from Add Health, we find no evidence that our results are biased by genetic pleiotropy, whereby differences in alleles among siblings relate to coloration and directly to cardiovascular health simultaneously. These results add to the extant evidence on color biases that are distinct from those based on race alone and that will likely only heighten in importance in an increasingly multiracial environment as categorization becomes more complex.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Laidley & Benjamin Domingue & Piyapat Sinsub & Kathleen Mullan Harris & Dalton Conley, 2019. "New Evidence of Skin Color Bias and Health Outcomes Using Sibling Difference Models: A Research Note," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(2), pages 753-762, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:56:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s13524-018-0756-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-018-0756-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13524-018-0756-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13524-018-0756-6?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. Edward Telles & Nelson Lim, 1998. "Does it matter who answers the race question? Racial classification and income inequality in Brazil," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 35(4), pages 465-474, November.
    2. Jenifer Bratter & Bridget Gorman, 2011. "Does Multiracial Matter? A Study of Racial Disparities in Self-Rated Health," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 127-152, February.
    3. Scott South & Kyle Crowder & Erick Chavez, 2005. "Migration and spatial assimilation among u.s. latinos: Classical versus segmented trajectories," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(3), pages 497-521, August.
    4. Aliya Saperstein & Aaron Gullickson, 2013. "A “Mulatto Escape Hatch” in the United States? Examining Evidence of Racial and Social Mobility During the Jim Crow Era," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1921-1942, October.
    5. Harburg, E. & Gleibermann, L. & Roeper, P. & Schork, M.A. & Schull, W.J., 1978. "Skin color, ethnicity, and blood pressure. I. Detroit blacks," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 68(12), pages 1177-1183.
    6. Sims, M. & Diez-Roux, A.V. & Dudley, A. & Gebreab, S. & Wyatt, S.B. & Bruce, M.A. & James, S.A. & Robinson, J.C. & Williams, D.R. & Taylor, H.A., 2012. "Perceived discrimination and hypertension among African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(S2), pages 258-265.
    7. Harburg, E. & Gleibermann, L. & Ozgoren, F. & Roeper, P. & Schork, M.A., 1978. "Skin color, ethnicity, and blood pressure. II. Detroit whites," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 68(12), pages 1184-1188.
    8. Aaron Gullickson & Florencia Torche, 2014. "Patterns of Racial and Educational Assortative Mating in Brazil," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 835-856, June.
    9. Boen, Courtney, 2016. "The role of socioeconomic factors in Black-White health inequities across the life course: Point-in-time measures, long-term exposures, and differential health returns," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 63-76.
    10. Do, D. Phuong & Frank, Reanne & Finch, Brian Karl, 2012. "Does SES explain more of the black/white health gap than we thought? Revisiting our approach toward understanding racial disparities in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1385-1393.
    11. Colen, Cynthia G. & Ramey, David M. & Cooksey, Elizabeth C. & Williams, David R., 2018. "Racial disparities in health among nonpoor African Americans and Hispanics: The role of acute and chronic discrimination," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 167-180.
    12. Letícia J. Marteleto & Molly Dondero, 2016. "Racial Inequality in Education in Brazil: A Twins Fixed-Effects Approach," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 1185-1205, August.
    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. Victor Hugo de Oliveira & José Raimundo Carvalho, 2024. "Measuring skin color inequality in women's health in Northeast Brazil: Evidence from the PCSVDFMulher survey," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 3-11, January.
    2. Alexander, Adam C. & Nollen, Nicole L. & Ahluwalia, Jasjit S. & Hébert, Emily T. & Businelle, Michael S. & Kendzor, Darla E., 2019. "Darker skin color is associated with a lower likelihood of smoking cessation among males but not females," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 240(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. Jerônimo Muniz & Stanley R. Bailey, 2022. "Does race response shift impact racial inequality?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(30), pages 935-966.
    2. Louie, Patricia & Wilkes, Rima, 2018. "Representations of race and skin tone in medical textbook imagery," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 38-42.
    3. Perreira, Krista M. & Telles, Edward E., 2014. "The color of health: Skin color, ethnoracial classification, and discrimination in the health of Latin Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 241-250.
    4. Fuentes, Agustín & Espinoza, Ulises J. & Cobbs, Virginia, 2024. "Follow the citations: Tracing pathways of “race as biology” assumptions in medical algorithms in eGFR and spirometry," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    5. John R. Hipp & Adam Boessen, 2012. "Immigrants and Social Distance," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 641(1), pages 192-219, May.
    6. Wolf, Jennifer Price & Freisthler, Bridget & McCarthy, Karla Shockley, 2021. "Parenting in poor health: Examining associations between parental health, prescription drug use, and child maltreatment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    7. Abigail Weitzman & Dalton Conley, 2014. "From Assortative to Ashortative Coupling: Men's Height, Height Heterogamy, and Relationship Dynamics in the United States," NBER Working Papers 20402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Audrey Light & Alita Nandi, 2007. "Identifying race and ethnicity in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 26(2), pages 125-144, April.
    9. Amory Gethin & Marc Morgan, 2021. "Democracy and the Politicization of Inequality in Brazil, 1989-2018," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-03165718, HAL.
    10. R. S. Oropesa, 2012. "Neighbourhood Disorder and Social Cohesiveness among Immigrants in a New Destination," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(1), pages 115-132, January.
    11. Shervin Assari & Susan D. Cochran & Vickie M. Mays, 2021. "Money Protects White but Not African American Men against Discrimination: Comparison of African American and White Men in the Same Geographic Areas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-12, March.
    12. Kate Choi & Nancy Reichman, 2019. "The health of biracial children in two-parent families in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(8), pages 197-230.
    13. Sarah Burgard, 2002. "Does race matter? Children’s height in Brazil and South Africa," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(4), pages 763-790, November.
    14. Casey F. Breen, 2023. "Late-Life Changes in Ethnoracial Self-identification: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Data," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-18, February.
    15. Barry A. Franklin & Akash Rusia & Cindy Haskin-Popp & Adam Tawney, 2021. "Chronic Stress, Exercise and Cardiovascular Disease: Placing the Benefits and Risks of Physical Activity into Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-17, September.
    16. Branko Milanovic & Paola Salardi, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender and Racial Occupational Segregation Across Formal and Non-Formal Labor Markets in Brazil, 1987 to 2006," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62, pages 68-89, August.
    17. Jenifer L. Bratter, 2018. "Multiracial Identification and Racial Gaps: A Work in Progress," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 677(1), pages 69-80, May.
    18. Roland G. Fryer Jr. & Lisa Kahn & Steven D. Levitt & Jörg L. Spenkuch, 2012. "The Plight of Mixed-Race Adolescents," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 621-634, August.
    19. Sarah R. Brauner-Otto & William G. Axinn & Dirgha J. Ghimire, 2020. "Parents’ Marital Quality and Children’s Transition to Adulthood," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(1), pages 195-220, February.
    20. Aslan Zorlu & Clara Mulder, 2008. "Initial and Subsequent Location Choices of Immigrants to the Netherlands," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 245-264.

    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:spr:demogr:v:56:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s13524-018-0756-6. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.