Regional and Racial Inequality in Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1900-1948

In the first half of the twentieth century, the rate of death from infectious disease in the United States fell precipitously. Although this decline is well-known and well-documented, there is surprisingly little evidence about whether it took place uniformly across the regions of the United States....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Demography 2019-08, Vol.56 (4), p.1371-1388
Main Authors: Feigenbaum, James J., Muller, Christopher, Wrigley-Field, Elizabeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
African Americans
Black or African American - statistics & numerical data
Cities
Cities - epidemiology
Communicable Diseases - ethnology
Communicable Diseases - mortality
Death & dying
Demography
Disease
Female
Geography
HEALTH AND MORTALITY
History, 20th Century
Humans
Infectious diseases
Influenza
Influenza Pandemic, 1918-1919 - mortality
Male
Medicine/Public Health
Minority & ethnic groups
Mortality
Mortality rates
Pandemics
Population Economics
Racial inequality
Residence Characteristics - statistics & numerical data
Social Sciences
Sociology
Southeastern United States - epidemiology
United States - epidemiology
Urban areas
Urban decline
Urban Population - statistics & numerical data
White people
White People - statistics & numerical data
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Summary:In the first half of the twentieth century, the rate of death from infectious disease in the United States fell precipitously. Although this decline is well-known and well-documented, there is surprisingly little evidence about whether it took place uniformly across the regions of the United States. We use data on infectious disease deaths from all reporting U.S. cities to describe regional patterns in the decline of urban infectious mortality from 1900 to 1948. We report three main results. First, urban infectious mortality was higher in the South in every year from 1900 to 1948. Second, infectious mortality declined later in southern cities than in cities in the other regions. Third, comparatively high infectious mortality in southern cities was driven primarily by extremely high infectious mortality among African Americans. From 1906 to 1920, African Americans in cities experienced a rate of death from infectious disease that was greater than what urban whites experienced during the 1918 flu pandemic.
ISSN:0070-3370
1533-7790
DOI:10.1007/s13524-019-00789-z