Assignment: Black Neighborhoods

Assignment: Black Neighborhoods

Racial and ethnic neighborhood disparities. Source: Acevedo-Garcia et al. (2008).

Minorities tend to live in poorer areas (see Figure 1.4), and these disadvantaged neighborhoods are exposed to greater health hazards, including tobacco and alcohol advertisements, toxic waste incinerators, and air pollution. Tiny particles of air pollution contain more hazardous ingredients in non-white and low-income communities than in affluent white ones (Katz, 2012). The greater the concentration of Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, or poor residents in an area, the more likely it is that potentially dangerous compounds such as vanadium, nitrates, and zinc are in the mix of fine particles they breathe. In a study conducted in 2012, the group with the highest exposure to the largest number of these ingredients was Latinos, while whites generally had the lowest exposure. Economic stress within a community may exacerbate tensions between social groups, magnify workplace stressors, induce maladaptive coping behaviors such as smoking and alcohol use, and
translate into individual stress, all of which makes individuals more vulnerable to illness (e.g., depression, high blood pressure). Factors associated with living in poor neighborhoods—crime, noise, traffic, litter, crowding, and physical deterioration—also can cause stress.

Some health issues related to where one lives include the following (Cooper, 2014):

Two to three times as many fast food outlets are located in segregated black neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods of comparable socioeconomic status, contributing to higher black consumption of fatty, salty meals and in turn widening racial disparities in obesity and diabetes.

Black neighborhoods contain two to three times fewer supermarkets than comparable white neighborhoods, creating the kind of “ food deserts” that make it difficult for residents who depend on public transportation to purchase the fresh fruits and vegetables that make for a healthy diet.

Fewer African-Americans have ready access to places to work off excess weight that can gradually cause death. A study limited to New York, Maryland and North Carolina found that black neighborhoods were three times more likely to lack recreational facilities where residents could exercise and relieve stress.

 

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

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