US study finds lasting Black–White gaps in local conditions
An observational study linked local records to US participants from ages 12–20 to 33–42 across 1994–2018, finding persistent racial disparities.
The Journals of Gerontology, Series B
The researchers studied participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health from adolescence, at ages 12–20, to early midlife, at ages 33–42. In this descriptive observational analysis, they linked external records to participants’ locations across study waves from 1994 to 2018. The measures covered housing, credit markets, politics, criminal law, cultural climate and history.
Black–White disparities were substantial and persistent. Black participants more often lived in counties with higher eviction rates and greater housing-cost burdens than White participants. Compared with White participants’ counties, their counties also had greater economic segregation by race, higher imprisonment rates and more hate crime incidents. Black participants also lived in states with greater historical lynching violence.
Why it matters
Linking social conditions across life to biological data and measures of midlife abilities could help researchers investigate pathways to inequalities in healthy aging.
Caveats
This descriptive observational study did not test whether local conditions caused differences in health or aging. Researchers using these measures need to consider each source’s data collection methods and coverage.
The paper
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Journals of Gerontology, Series B · 1 Oct 2026
