Race, structural racism and racial disparities in firearm homicide victimisation

To identify an approach in measuring the association between structural racism and racial disparities in firearm homicide victimisation focusing on racism, rather than race.

We examined associations of six measures of structural racism (Black/white disparity ratios in poverty, education, labour force participation, rental housing, single-parent households and index crime arrests) with state-level Black-white disparities in US age-adjusted firearm homicide victimisation rates 2010-2019. We regressed firearm homicide victimisation disparities on four specifications of independent variables: (1) absolute measure only; (2) absolute measure and per cent Black; (3) absolute measure and Black-white disparity ratio and (4) absolute measure, per cent Black and disparity ratio.

For all six measures of structural racism the optimal specification included the absolute measure and Black-white disparity ratio and did not include per cent Black. Coefficients for the Black-white disparity were statistically significant, while per cent Black was not.

In the presence of structural racism measures, the inclusion of per cent Black did not contribute to the explanation of firearm homicide disparities in this study. Findings provide empiric evidence for the preferred use of structural racism measures instead of race.