Gentrification Yields Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Exposure To Contextual Determinants Of Health

This article examines racial and ethnic disparities in the relationship between gentrification and exposure to contextual determinants of health. In our study, we focused on changes in selected contextual determinants of health (health care access, social deprivation, air pollution, and walkability) and life expectancy during the period 2006-21 among residents of gentrifying census tracts in six large US cities that have experienced different gentrification patterns and have different levels of segregation: Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; San Francisco, California; and Seattle, Washington. We found that gentrification was associated with overall improvements in the likelihood of living in Medically Underserved Areas across racial and ethnic groups, but it was also associated with increased social deprivation and reduced life expectancy among Black people, Hispanic people, and people of another or undetermined race or ethnicity. In contrast, we found that gentrification was related to better (or unchanged) contextual determinants of health for Asian people and White people. Our findings can inform policies that target communities identified to be particularly at risk for worsening contextual determinants of health as a result of gentrification.