Perceived Housing Discrimination and Self-Rated Health: How Do Neighborhood Features Matter?

Tse-Chuan Yang, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Danhong Chen, Pennsylvania State University
Kiwoong Park, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)

In the US, racial/ethnic minorities have been found to disproportionately live in substandard housing units, which may hinder health. Racial housing discrimination contributes to this phenomenon because it exposes individuals to unhealthy housing conditions, limits life chances, and erodes personal self-esteem. Using the 2008 Public Health Management Corporation’s Southeastern Household Survey in Philadelphia and multilevel modeling, we found that (1) experiencing racial housing discrimination increases the odds of reporting poor/fair self-rated health; (2) the relationship between perceived discrimination and self-rated health is more pronounced in the neighborhood featured with a more expensive housing market; (3) the adverse association of discrimination with self-rated health is attenuated in the neighborhood with high concentrations of non-Hispanic Black; and (4) respondents in the socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood suffer from discrimination less than their counterparts in the affluent neighborhood. These results suggest that neighborhood features could moderate the association between self-rated health and racial housing discrimination.