Racial Disparities in Mortality During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in United States Cities
| Autor: | Martin Eiermann, Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, James J. Feigenbaum, Jonas Helgertz, Elaine Hernandez, Courtney E. Boen |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Race
Gender and Class SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Evolution Biology and Society bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Demography Population and Ecology SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Human Ecology bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Family Life Course and Society Influenza Human SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Racial and Ethnic Minorities Humans SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Other Social and Behavioral Sciences SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Medical Sociology Cities Pandemics Demography bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Other Social and Behavioral Sciences bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Race and Ethnicity Racial Groups bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Medicine and Health Health Status Disparities United States SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Aging and the Life Course bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Population bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Inequality and Stratification |
| Popis: | Against a backdrop of extreme racial health inequality, the 1918 influenza pandemic resulted in a striking reduction of non-White to White influenza and pneumonia mortality disparities in United States cities. We provide the most complete account to date of these reduced racial disparities, showing that they were unexpectedly uniform across cities. Linking data from multiple sources, we then examine potential explanations for this finding, including city-level sociodemographic factors such as segregation, implementation of nonpharmaceutical interventions, racial differences in exposure to the milder spring 1918 “herald wave,” and racial differences in early-life influenza exposures, resulting in differential immunological vulnerability to the 1918 flu. While we find little evidence for the first three explanations, we offer suggestive evidence that racial variation in childhood exposure to the 1889–1892 influenza pandemic may have shrunk racial disparities in 1918. We also highlight the possibility that differential behavioral responses to the herald wave may have protected non-White urban populations. By providing a comprehensive description and examination of racial inequality in mortality during the 1918 pandemic, we offer a framework for understanding disparities in infectious disease mortality that considers interactions between the natural histories of particular microbial agents and the social histories of those they infect. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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