Study links historic redlining to current Black maternal health disparities

Despite coming to an end in the 1960s, institutionally racist policies like redlining still contribute to poor health outcomes and Black maternal health disparities, according to new research (Source: “Decades-Old Policy Fuel Black Maternal Health Disparities,” Patient Engagement HIT, Oct. 5).

A relic of the 1930s, redlining was a discriminatory practice in which the US Home Owners’ Loan Corporation designated thousands of areas as “unsafe” for issuing a homeowner’s loan. “Unsafe” usually meant there was a higher proportion of Black people living in a given neighborhood, creating a system of divestment that made it harder for Black people to own a home.

The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that poor outcomes happening today were largely concentrated in areas that in the 1940s had been deemed “hazardous” for homeowner’s loans by the HOLC. In other words, the racist policymaking of the mid-20th century is still having negative health equity impacts today.

“This structure of disinvestment, which formally stretched forward into the 1960s, has far-reaching impacts,” the researchers explained. “The legacy of historic redline racial discrimination correlates with modern social and health inequities.”