Research has linked residential segregation to an elevated risk of illness and death and shown that it contributes to the racial disparities in health.62, 70 A recent study of US metro areas found that residential area mattered for birth outcomes for blacks. In contrast to prior work using a single dimension of segregation, this study operationalized hypersegregation as areas scoring high on four or five of the distinct dimensions of segregation.71 It noted that although only 9% of metro areas representing 28% of U.S. births were hypersegregated, some 40% of black women of childbearing age lived in hypersegregated areas. In addition, black infants in hypersegregated areas were more likely to be pre-term than those in less segregated areas and black-white differences in pre-term birth were larger in hypersegregated areas than in less segregated ones. It also found that the association of increasing age with poorer birth outcome for African Americans was greater in hypersegregated areas than in other areas.71 Another study found that the elevated prevalence of CVD risk factors for blacks and Hispanic premenopausal women compared to white women
