Highlighting Racial Health Disparities Can Spark Support for Action

Duke study uses stories about water crisis in Michigan to point to importance of reframing the language of racial inequality

Flint water plant

Stories involving poverty and race are far more likely to get public attention if they focus on health disparities, according to a new Duke study.

The study, “Highlighting health consequences of racial disparities sparks support for action,” published on December 22 in the journal Science, points to the importance of reframing the language of racial inequality.

“Racial health disparities violate concerns of moral sacredness and spark injustice beliefs, calling Americans to action,” according to the study by Maureen Craig, Duke associate research professor of psychology and neuroscience, and two of her former doctoral students – Riana M. Brown and Pia Dietze.

The study found “health disparities may be viewed as particularly pernicious because issues related to health and medical care – broadly, the protection of human life – are considered “sacred moral values.”

“When something is sacred, it is treated as morally imperative to protect relative to non-sacred, secular concerns such as economic issues,” the authors added.

The study cited as an example two race-based predicaments in Flint, Michigan, where more than half the population is African American, and more than 40 percent of its residents live below the poverty line.

A 2019 Washington Post story that reported Flint was the most impoverished city in the country received scant attention.

By comparison, the Post that year also reported that segregation and political mismanagement led to a water crisis in Flint after city leaders in 2014 switched its drinking water supply from Detroit’s system to the lead-contaminated Flint River to save money.

The news about Flint’s contaminated water supply was cause for national outrage and concrete change. The distinctions provide guidance to how activists, politicians and leaders of social movements can frame issues most effectively.

“If the goal is to motivate regular people to be more concerned, then these findings could show a way to motivate folks.”

Maureen Craig

“If the goal is to motivate regular people to be more concerned, then these findings could show a way to motivate folks,” Craig said. “We think these findings could be particularly useful if the goal is to increase concern for racial disparities. It suggests focusing on health consequences can lead everyday Americans to be more concerned than they are about economic consequences.”

Craig, a Michigan native, said the research project began in June 2020, at the height of the global protests and demands for justice after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

That’s when Craig and her fellow researchers began talking about comparing people’s responses to different forms of racial disparities. They began with the hypothesis that people will generally be more interested in alleviating health disparities than economic or other inequities.

The research consisted of four studies, including two mostly white samples, a targeted sample with equal numbers of white and Black Americans, a sample of social media users, along with a nationally representative sample, to determine if Americans would support action – including a tax increase – that would help address various types of disparities.

Overall, the researchers found that “both white and Black Americans expressed more support for reducing health disparities than other disparities.”

Craig noted Americans generally agree something should be done to address racial disparities, but what’s telling is how responses differed, depending on how the questions were phrased. For example, people were asked if they would support action generally, as well as their support of specific policies, such as a tax increase, to ameliorate the issue.

“There’s a gap between how much people say something should be done and how much they agree that money should be taken from taxes in order to do it,” she explained.

Craig said more research is needed to understand why Americans do not automatically make the connection between economic disparities and poor health outcomes among Black Americans.

“What we are saying is that by focusing more on the health consequences, even if it’s driven by economics, the focus on the health consequences should be more mobilizing,” Craig explained.