The Impact of Increasing Workforce Racial Diversity on Black-White Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease Mortality

Details

• Alternative Title:
  J Epidemiol Community Health
• Personal Author:
  Colbeth, Hilary L. ; Riddell, Corinne A. ; Thomas, Marilyn D. ; Mujahid, Mahasin S. ; Eisen, Ellen A.
• Description:
  Background.
  
  Structural racism’s influence on workforce policies and practices presents possible upstream targets for assessing and reducing racial health disparities. This study is the first to examine workforce racial diversity in association with racial disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes.
  
  Methods.
  
  This retrospective cohort study of 39,693 hourly autoworkers from three Michigan automobile plants, includes 75 years of follow-up (1941–2015). Workforce racial diversity (percent Black autoworkers) was a plant and year level variable. Annual exposure was cumulated over each individual’s working life and divided by time since hire. This time-varying measure was categorized into low, moderate, and high. We estimated age-standardized rates of CVD and cox proportional hazards ratios (HR) by race.
  
  Results.
  
  CVD mortality per 100,000 person-years decreased among autoworkers over the study period; however, Black workers’ rates remained higher than White workers. Among Black workers, we observed a strong protective association between greater workforce racial diversity and CVD mortality. For example, at the Detroit plant, the HR for moderate exposure to racial diversity was 0.94 (0.83, 1.08) and dropped to 0.78 (0.67, 0.90) in the highest level. Among White workers, results were mixed by plant, with protective effects in plants where less than 20% of workers were Black and null results where Black workers became the majority.
  
  Conclusion.
  
  Our findings provide evidence that workplace racial diversity may reduce CVD mortality risk among Black workers. Workplace practices encouraging diverse hiring and retention have potential to improve all workers’ health; particularly the socially racialized groups in that workforce.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Black Or African American Cardiovascular Diseases Cultural Diversity Female Health Status Disparities Humans Male Michigan Middle Aged Racism Retrospective Studies White White People

  More +
• Source:
  J Epidemiol Community Health. 79(1):42-48
• Pubmed ID:
  39251342
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC11631673
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  R01 OH011092/OH/NIOSH CDC HHSUnited States/ ; T42 OH008429/OH/NIOSH CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  79
• Issue:
  1
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:de2c97fafddd99c70923215393044b622fde02ef89d8840798183c69ba099b7d5170a35dbedf82ea80c4269db3dec600f77202b50f0a99efd9b21bc55a16e293
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/174566/cdc_174566_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 404.94 KB ]