Bécares Laia, Nazroo James, Jackson James
Laia Bécares and James Nazroo are with the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity, University of Manchester, UK. James Jackson is with the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Am J Public Health. 2014 Dec;104(12):2334-41. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302047. Epub 2014 Oct 16.
We examined the association between Black ethnic density and depressive symptoms among African Americans. We sought to ascertain whether a threshold exists in the association between Black ethnic density and an important mental health outcome, and to identify differential effects of this association across social, economic, and demographic subpopulations.
We analyzed the African American sample (n = 3570) from the National Survey of American Life, which we geocoded to the 2000 US Census. We determined the threshold with a multivariable regression spline model. We examined differential effects of ethnic density with random-effects multilevel linear regressions stratified by sociodemographic characteristics.
The protective association between Black ethnic density and depressive symptoms changed direction, becoming a detrimental effect, when ethnic density reached 85%. Black ethnic density was protective for lower socioeconomic positions and detrimental for the better-off categories. The masking effects of area deprivation were stronger in the highest levels of Black ethnic density.
Addressing racism, racial discrimination, economic deprivation, and poor services-the main drivers differentiating ethnic density from residential segregation-will help to ensure that the racial/ethnic composition of a neighborhood is not a risk factor for poor mental health.
我们研究了非裔美国人中黑人种族密度与抑郁症状之间的关联。我们试图确定黑人种族密度与一项重要心理健康结果之间的关联是否存在阈值，并确定该关联在社会、经济和人口亚群体中的差异效应。
我们分析了来自美国生活全国调查的非裔美国人样本（n = 3570），并将其地理编码到2000年美国人口普查数据中。我们使用多变量回归样条模型确定阈值。我们通过按社会人口特征分层的随机效应多水平线性回归来研究种族密度的差异效应。
当种族密度达到85%时，黑人种族密度与抑郁症状之间的保护关联方向发生改变，变为有害效应。黑人种族密度对社会经济地位较低者具有保护作用，而对较富裕群体则有害。在黑人种族密度最高的水平上，地区贫困的掩盖效应更强。
解决种族主义、种族歧视、经济剥夺和服务不佳等问题（这些是区分种族密度与居住隔离的主要驱动因素）将有助于确保邻里的种族/族裔构成不会成为心理健康不佳的风险因素。
