Sociology Prof. James House wore a suit and tie to
Friday’s panel discussion on racial disparities in society at
the Institute for Social Research. Although House attributed his
formal attire to his respect for the event, he said many of his
colleagues of black descent wear a suit and tie every day to avoid
discrimination.

“They are less likely to be stopped by the police (when
wearing a suit). It’s that kind of burden of discrimination
that people of even better socioeconomic status face,” said
House, who is also a research professor at the Survey Research
Center.

He said studying these scenarios is necessary because it
documents and clarifies racial disparities and where they tend to
exist.

Joining House were four other researchers addressing “the
role of interdisciplinary research in reducing racial and ethnic
health disparities” to an audience of about 80 people, mostly
professors and researchers. The event was part of the 17th annual
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium.

Researchers individually presented their findings on several
aspects of the racial discrepancies that exist in the United
States, with a focus on health-related issues.

Panelist James Jackson, a psychology professor, presented
statistics comparing the socioeconomic status of the black
community now and in the 1960s. He said the average unemployment
rate in 2003 was 5.2 percent for whites and 10.8 percent for
blacks.

He cited similar examples regarding per capita income, infant
mortality and household net worth, saying that in each case the
disparities between whites and blacks had gotten larger since the
1960s.

“My cousins are thugs and murderers because of the
circumstances they are in. … This is the case for many
African Americans,” Jackson said.

Pamela Thornton, a research fellow at the Survey Research
Center, and epidemiology Prof. Ana Diez-Roux focused on the health
disparities that exist for blacks. Thornton presented a study on
how health affects everyday activities. Her research focused on
walking, climbing and shoving snow. The research found that whites
had an easier time with some of the activities than blacks, but the
study also revealed that greater equality in this area existed
between the two races in 1986.

Diez-Roux said that the well-being of individuals was contingent
upon their residential environments. She said factors such as diet,
physical activity and smoking were strongly influenced by
“neighborhood characteristics.”

Adding to these finding was sociology Prof. David
Williams’s discussion of the healthy immigrant effect. He
said that people who had immigrated to the U.S. tended to be
healthier than the native population.

He added that as the length of the immigrants’ stay
increased, their health declined, joking that the American way of
life was dangerous to one’s well-being.

Williams also showed data ranking countries by the overall
health of their people. The United States ranked in the mid-20s in
three of the surveys. “The U.S. spends more per person on
medical care, and (despite this) even the (overall) white
population lags behind,” he said.

Education Prof. Larry Rowley said he attended the event because
he teaches a class on black social development. “(The panel
discussion) has been comprehensive,” he said. “It is
additional fodder for my own teaching and research.”

David Nerenz, a doctor at Henry Ford Medical Center in Detroit,
said he expected to hear more about the interdisciplinary aspect of
research.