COVID-19 Pandemic as an Equalizer of the Health Returns of Educational Attainment for Black and White Americans

    Background COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted the social and personal lives of individuals around the globe. Marginalized-related diminished returns (MDRs) theory suggests that educational attainment shows a weaker protective effect for health and behavioral outcomes for Black individuals...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities 2024-06, Vol.11 (3), p.1223-1237
Main Authors: Rahmani, Arash, Najand, Babak, Maharlouei, Najmeh, Zare, Hossein, Assari, Shervin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Behavior
Black or African American - psychology
Black or African American - statistics & numerical data
Black people
Chronic Disease
Chronic illnesses
Cigarette smoking
Cigarette Smoking - epidemiology
Cigarette Smoking - ethnology
Cigarettes
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - ethnology
Depression - epidemiology
Depression - ethnology
Education
Educational attainment
Educational Status
Electronic cigarettes
Epidemiology
Equalizers
Ethnicity
Female
Gender
Health behavior
Health disparities
Health information
Health status
Health Status Disparities
Hispanic Americans
Humans
Hypotheses
Independent variables
Inequality
Investigations
Male
Medical conditions
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mental depression
Mental health
Middle Aged
Minority & ethnic groups
Obesity
Obesity - epidemiology
Obesity - ethnology
Oppression
Pandemics
Personal information
Poverty
Quality of Life Research
Race
Racial differences
Self evaluation
Smoking
Social change
Social Inequality
Social Structure
Socioeconomic factors
Socioeconomic status
Symptoms
Unemployment
United States - epidemiology
Vaping
Vaping - ethnology
White People - psychology
White People - statistics & numerical data
Young Adult
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Summary:    Background COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted the social and personal lives of individuals around the globe. Marginalized-related diminished returns (MDRs) theory suggests that educational attainment shows a weaker protective effect for health and behavioral outcomes for Black individuals compared to White individuals. Previous studies conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated diminished returns of educational attainment for Black individuals compared to White individuals. Objectives The study has three objectives: First, to test the association between educational attainment and cigarette smoking, e-cigarette vaping, presence of chronic medical conditions (CMC), self-rated health (SRH), depressive symptoms, and obesity; second, to explore racial differences in these associations in the USA during the COVID-19 pandemic; and third, to compare the interaction of race and return of educational attainment pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. Methods This study utilized data from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 2020. Total sample included 1313 adult American; among them, 77.4% ( n  = 1017) were non-Hispanic White, and 22.6% ( n  = 296) were non-Hispanic Black. Educational attainment was the independent variable operationalized as years of education. The main outcomes were cigarette smoking, e-cigarette vaping, CMC, SRH, depressive symptoms, and obesity. Age, gender, and baseline physical health were covariates. Race/ethnicity was an effect modifier. Results Educational attainment was significantly associated with lower CMC, SRH, depressive symptoms, obesity, cigarette smoking, and e-cigarette vaping. Educational attainment did not show a significant interaction with race on any of our outcomes, suggesting that the health returns of education is similar between non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black individuals. Conclusion COVID-19 may have operated as an equalizer of the returns of educational attainment. This observation may be because White may have more to lose; Black communities may be more resilient or have economic and social policies that buffered unemployment and poverty regardless of historical anti-Black oppression.
ISSN:2197-3792
2196-8837
2196-8837
DOI:10.1007/s40615-023-01601-w