Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Geronimus, AT

Titel

To mitigate, resist, or undo: addressing structural influences on the health of urban populations

Ist Teil von

• American journal of public health (1971), 2000-06, Vol.90 (6), p.867-872

Ort / Verlag

Washington, DC: Am Public Health Assoc

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Young to middle-aged residents of impoverished urban areas suffer extra-ordinary rates of excess mortality, to which deaths from chronic disease contribute heavily. Understanding of urban health disadvantages and attempts to reverse them will be incomplete if the structural factors that produced modern minority ghettos in central cities are not taken into account. Dynamic conceptions of the role of race/ethnicity in producing health inequalities must encompass (1) social relationship between majority and minority populations that privilege the majority population and (2) the autonomous institutions within minority populations that members develop and sustain to mitigate, resist, or undo the adverse effects of discrimination. Broad social and economic policies that intensify poverty or undermine autonomous protections can reap dire consequences for health. Following from this structural analysis and previous research, guiding principles for action and suggestions for continued research are proposed. Without taking poverty and race/ethnicity into account, public health professionals who hope to redress the health problems of urban life risk exaggerating the returns that can be expected of public health campaigns or overlooking important approaches for mounting successful interventions.