<\/sup>and have higher rates of obesity. That adds up to poorer overall general health, higher rates of type 2 diabetes, and, ultimately, increased mortality than urban populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s been research that suggests a rural mortality penalty, the idea being that there are disparities in a number of different health outcomes, obesity being one on the forefront these days,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cThose differences are not uniform around the United States; where you live impacts your health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facing both racial and geographic disparities disproportionally affects people of color. Cohen examined health data from multiple regions of the United States, and further broke the data down to rural and urban areas within those regions. Studies have found black\/white differences in obesity prevalence is significantly higher\u2014up to 30%\u2014in rural than in the urban areas in most regions. That is in addition to the racial disparities that already exist. For example, the prevalence of obesity among non-Hispanic Black women (57%) was substantially higher than that among non-Hispanic white women (40%). Another study examining racial disparities in a major U.S. city found that the magnitude of black\/white health disparities decreased once the analysis controlled for the social environment, suggesting that geographic location, in addition to race, is driving health disparities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While there were some differences in disparities between urban and rural areas in some regions\u2014in the Northeast, for example the disparities were bigger in the urban areas\u2014in most cases, rural areas face far greater racial health disparities, a surprising finding to some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re examining why are we seeing this sort of exact opposite than we would expect, and why are there differences,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cPart of it is with those features we associate with rural areas\u2014less crowding, more room to grow fresh food, better mental health, less pollution\u2014come with things like a lack of infrastructure, especially for health care. There is more agriculture and open space in rural areas, but we found people tend to do less physical activity. Green space isn\u2019t necessarily safe space for walking, jogging, recreation. A lot of that green space is inaccessible agriculture space. They grow the food there, but then ship it elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cohen is looking to find the reasons for such disparities to help find solutions. It is difficult to pin down any one factor, he said, however, systemic racism plays a major role. It is no secret that racial minorities face hardships in accessing services, which not only prevents treatment of existing conditions, but can also cause more chronic stress. That stress can lead to people engaging in less healthy behaviors, like binge eating and excessive drinking. Stress also raises cortisol levels in the body, changing the way the body metabolizes food, often leading to weight gain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom a research perspective, we really need to understand why this is happening. We can frame it as cultural, systemic racism, social determinants, but I feel like we know a lot of this now,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cWe see disparities everywhere, especially racial disparities. So what are some of the things we can start to do to actually start acting?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finding potential solutions is a challenge, as it has been with racial disparities throughout the country\u2019s history. Making people more aware of the depth of the problem and why they should care about it is the first step,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is an issue that people who want to know about it are well aware of, but people who don\u2019t want to know maybe don\u2019t care, don\u2019t have empathy. People have to be aware of this. We have to advocate,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cIt\u2019s ultimately the government\u2019s job to protect their citizens against inequities and inequalities; but it has to come from the people who need to be aware of these things and advocate in their own communities to address them. Having a 50% obesity rate in some regions is a premature death sentence for millions of people living there. So we have to figure out what is it causing this and address those things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
URI Health Studies Professor Steve Cohen examines urban-rural divide, a growing disparity in health care that is worse in some areas Racial disparities in health and health care throughout the lifespan are pervasive and well-documented, and culminate in a life expectancy for Black people that is about four years shorter than for white people. One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":10767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10766"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10769,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10766\/revisions\/10769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}