Racial inequality in the prime of life: infectious disease mortality in U.S. cities, 1906–1933
Date
2023
Authors
Antoine-Jones, Aja
Feigenbaum, James J.
Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren
Muller, Christopher
Wrigley-Field, Elizabeth
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
A. Antoine-Jones, J.J. Feigenbaum, L. Hoehn-Velasco, C. Muller, E. Wrigley-Field. 2023. "Racial Inequality in the Prime of Life: Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1906–1933" Social Science History, Volume 47, Issue 3, pp.491-504. https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2023.4
Abstract
In the first half of the twentieth century, deaths from infectious disease, especially among the very young, fell dramatically in American cities. However, as infant mortality fell and life expectancy rose, racial inequality in urban infectious disease mortality grew. In this paper, we show that the fall in mortality and the rise in racial inequality in mortality reflected two countervailing processes. The dramatic decline in infant mortality from waterborne diseases drastically reduced the total urban infectious disease mortality rate of both Black and white Americans while having a comparatively small effect on the total racial disparity in urban infectious disease mortality. In contrast, the unequal fall in tuberculosis mortality, particularly in the prime of life, widened racial inequality in infectious disease mortality in US cities.
Description
License
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. This article has been published under a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with CUP.