Events

Abstract:

With concepts like structural racism and social determinants of health currently trending in both academic and public discourse, examining the nation’s resource “deserts”, their  historical roots, and their consequences for health is increasingly timely. Drawing from an environmental justice framework, the current study provides an ecological analysis
of the basis and consequences of spatial inequality across urban neighborhoods of the American South. Research on access to resources like grocery stores, parks, and pharmacies has been conducted in isolation, representing a gap in our understanding of this type of neighborhood spatial inequality. I argue that examining whether and how neighborhoods exist as deserts of multiple resources is important for revealing a more complex understanding of spatial inequality than observing single resources independently. As such, this study examines 1) how race and class shape resource scarcity in
neighborhoods, and 2) how multiple resource scarcity shapes health outcomes. Findings from this work implicate a critical route through which racism shapes inequality and health, thereby demonstrating a need to address disproportionate access and subsequent racial health inequalities across socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the study highlights urban inequality in America’s southern cities, an under-studied region of the U.S. in this research area.

The Sociology Seminar Series for Trinity Term is convened by Mollie Fee and Mobarak Hossain.  For more information about this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.