NOTE: For all.
Have you attempted to obtain a new physician?
Are any physicians in your community accepting new patients?
How far ahead do you have to schedule an appointment for your annual physical?
Is the problem with the entire industry, and not just for minorities?
Although disparity for health care is increased for blacks, other minorities and others of lower income
NIH
Health Disparities Seminar - Forging a Research Program on the Health of the
Black Middle Class - Thursday, May 15
PRESENTATION:
Forging a Research Program on the Health of the Black
Middle Class
GUEST SPEAKERS:
Kris Marsh, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD
Rashawn Ray, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD
DATE/TIME:
Thursday, May 15, 2014
3:00 - 4:30 P.M.
LOCATION:
NIH Campus
Natcher Conference Center, Building 45, Conference Rooms
E1 & E2
45 Center Drive
Bethesda, MD
PRESENTATION OVERVIEW:
The black middle class is viewed as an example of racial
progress. Yet, the health outcomes of middle-class blacks fall dismally behind
those of middle-class whites. In this regard, the health outcomes among
middle-class blacks stall this alleged progress because middle-class status
does not seem to provide the same health benefits to blacks as it does to
whites. Without a better understanding of racial differences among the middle
class, we cannot devise effective policy solutions to combat health disparities
among the most underserved of our population. In their presentations, Dr. Kris
Marsh and Dr. Rashawn Ray will provide an overview of a research agenda
centered on psychological distress, physical activity, and aging among the
black middle class. Using U.S. census and national data, as well as a unique
data set on middle-class blacks and whites, they will document how health
disparities among the middle class are very much centered on the experiences of
black women. They will focus on how the stigma of being single affects the
mental health and wealth decisions of middle-class black women as they age and
show how the structure of neighborhoods and the social construction of bodies
are privileged to support other raced and gendered groups leading to lower levels
of physical activity and higher levels of obesity among middle-class black
women. Drawing upon the intersectionality framework, they will discuss how the
interactive effect of race and gender can be costly for middle-class black
women.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Dr. Marsh is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the
University of Maryland, College Park, and affiliate faculty of the Maryland
Population Research Center, Department of Women's Studies, and African American
Studies Department. Previously, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the Carolina
Population Center at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Marsh has combined
her interests of the black middle class, demography, racial residential
segregation, and education to develop a research agenda. This agenda is divided
into three broad areas: the black middle class, the intersection of educational
attainment and racial identification, and intra-racial health disparities. The
common theme in her work is decomposing what it means to be black in America by
focusing on intra-group variability in class, space, identity and educational
achievement. Dr. Marsh has published work on the demographic shift in the black
middle class with the emergence of single and living alone (SALA) households
and the residential segregation patterns and trends of black and white SALA
households. She received a doctoral degree from the University of Southern
California.
Dr. Ray is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the
University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, he was a Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California,
Berkeley/University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ray’s research addresses
the mechanisms that manufacture and maintain racial and social inequality. His work
also speaks to ways that inequality may be attenuated through racial uplift
activism and social policy. Dr. Ray is the editor of Race and Ethnic Relations
in the Twenty-first Century: History, Theory, Institutions, and Policy. His
work has appeared in Ethnic and Racial Studies, American Behavioral Scientist,
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Higher Education, and Journal
of African American Studies. He received a doctoral degree in sociology from
Indiana University.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
There is limited parking on the NIH campus. The
closest Metro is Medical Center. Please allow adequate time for security
check.
The seminar will be video cast and made available in the NIH Video
archives and on the NIMHD website after the seminar.
Sign Language
Interpreters will be provided. Individuals with disabilities who need
reasonable accommodations to participate should contact Edgar Dews at (301)
402-1366 or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339.
