(Press-News.org) America's communities are becoming increasingly diverse, but there are still important concerns about racial and ethnic integration in the future, according to researchers.
A new US2010 report shows whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians are increasingly sharing American communities, said Barry Lee, professor of sociology and demography, Penn State.
Lee, who co-wrote the report with John Iceland, professor of sociology and demography, Penn State, and Chad Farrell, associate professor of sociology, University of Alaska Anchorage, said that a universal trend toward greater diversity has been underway across metro and micro areas since 1980, fueled by Hispanic and Asian growth.
During the same period, a large majority of the areas exhibit declines in the segregation of their black and white populations. The number of mixed neighborhoods -- areas where no racial-ethnic group constitutes a majority of residents -- has more than quadrupled in metro settings, from roughly 1,500 in 1980 to 6,300 in 2010.
"While these patterns make one optimistic about integration, there are other findings that complicate the story," said Lee.
He pointed out, for example, that micropolitan areas -- nonmetro counties with an urban cluster of between 10,000 and 49,000 people -- lag 30 years or more behind their metropolitan counterparts in average levels of ethnic and racial diversity. Moreover, the segregation of metropolitan Hispanics and Asians has changed little during recent decades, especially for some of the largest or fastest-growing groups such as Mexicans and Asian Indians. Segregation remains substantial in magnitude among Dominican, Guatemalan, Cuban, Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean metro dwellers as well.
Another finding uncovered by the research speaks to the fate of metropolitan neighborhoods with mixed -- no-majority -- racial-ethnic compositions in 1980 or 1990. In gateway areas defined by a large foreign-born population, only about one-fourth of these neighborhoods are still mixed as of 2010, most having become majority Hispanic. Far fewer such neighborhoods existed in areas dominated by natives -- non-immigrants -- two or three decades ago, and most now have a majority of African American residents.
"The fragility of mixed neighborhoods calls into question the potential for neighborhoods to match the diversity of the cities or metros where they are located, at least over the short term," said Lee.
The researchers used data from the last four censuses to examine the ethnic and racial diversity of metropolitan and micropolitan areas, the degree to which members of different groups live in the same neighborhoods within such areas and the persistence of mixed neighborhoods over time. These three aspects of integration are rarely analyzed together, according to the researchers.
INFORMATION:
The Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University funded this work.
END
Nearly 1 in 3 American children are overweight or obese, but sugary sweets are often on the menu at elementary school classroom parties.
But schools with a district policy or state law discouraging sugary foods and beverages were 2.5 times more likely to restrict those foods at parties than were schools with no such policy or law, according to a new study published online in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago examined the linkages among state laws, district, and school-level policies for classroom birthday ...
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., October 2, 2013 – A recently published study by researchers from Spectrum Health and Henry Ford Hospital suggests that surgery may be an effective treatment for epilepsy in older patients, a finding that runs counter to conventional treatment methods.
"Traditionally, there has been a tendency to exclude older patients from surgery for fear of increased risk of medical or surgical complications," said Spectrum Health Medical Group neurosurgeon Sanjay Patra, MD, lead author of the study. "This study provides evidence that surgery may instead be a viable ...
A new study published today in British Journal of Pharmacology has identified that a component of grapefruit and other citrus fruits, naringenin, successfully blocks the formation of kidney cysts.
Known as polycystic kidney disease, this is an inherited disorder which leads to the loss of kidney function, high blood pressure and the need for dialysis. Few treatment options are currently available.
The team of scientists from Royal Holloway University, St George's, University of London and Kingston University London used a simple, single-celled amoeba to identify that ...
New classification criteria for systemic sclerosis have just been published and are more sensitive than the 1980 criteria, enabling earlier identification and treatment of this disabling autoimmune disease. The 2013 criteria, developed by a joint committee commissioned by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR), are published in the ACR journal, Arthritis & Rheumatism.
Systemic sclerosis, also known as scleroderma, is a connective tissue disease that is characterized by sclerodermatous skin changes–a hardening of tissue ...
Concerned about the effect of stress on your health and well-being? If your answer is "yes," then Arizona State University Professor Doug Granger is doing research that could impact you. Granger is pioneering the field of interdisciplinary salivary bioscience using spit.
Spit conjures a variety of saying and images for most people, but for Granger and colleagues spit is also serious business. "The use of oral fluid as a research and diagnostic specimen has tremendous potential," says Granger, who is the director of ASU's new Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience ...
In many ways, the spread of HIV has been fueled by substance abuse. Shared needles and drug users' high-risk sexual behaviors are just some of the ways that narcotics such as cocaine have played a key role in the AIDS epidemic in much of the world.
There is, however, relatively little research into how drugs can impact the body's defenses against the virus. But a new UCLA study published in the October issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology examines how cocaine affects a unique population of immune cells called quiescent CD4 T cells, which are resistant to the virus ...
Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that mice made obese by high-calorie, high-fat diets develop abnormally high numbers of lesions known to be precursors to pancreas cancer.
This is the first study to show a direct causative link in an animal model between obesity and risk of this deadly cancer.
The study, published Sept. 30 in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, was led by Dr. Guido Eibl, a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center and a professor in the department of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. ...
Three researchers from the University of Huddersfield have published a paper in the Prison Service Journal looking at the important issue of what affect family ties and relationships can have on the prisoner, as well as how imprisonment can influence the family.
This paper presents a qualitative evaluation of the Family Support Project (FSP) delivered at HMP New Hall, a female establishment located in West Yorkshire. The FSP was delivered by one female Family Support Officer (FSO) and managed by Lincolnshire Action Trust (LAT). Semi-structured interviews and focus groups ...
DURHAM, N.C. -- Elevated levels of radioactivity, salts and metals have been found in river water and sediments at a site where treated water from oil and gas operations is discharged into a western Pennsylvania creek.
"Radium levels were about 200 times greater in sediment samples collected where the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility discharges its treated wastewater into Blacklick Creek than in sediment samples collected just upstream of the plant," said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.
The ...
This news release is available in French. Researchers at the University of Montreal and the Institut universitaire de gératrie de Montréal examined brain changes over 20 months in Parkinson's patients with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at the early stages of the disease. Results showed that patients with MCI had significantly more cortical thinning and subcortical atrophy over time compared with patients without MCI, suggesting that early MCI in PD patients may indicate faster neurodegeneration. The specific pattern observed might serve as a marker for ...
