Childhood Asthma: A Lingering Effect of Redlining

In the 1930s, a New Deal agency produced notorious maps to signal the credit worthiness of neighborhoods for mortgage lenders looking to refinance homes. These redlining maps color-coded predominantly African American neighborhoods as “hazardous,” indicating a high credit risk. Decades later, the “hazardous” warnings appear to be literally true.

A new study finds that people who live in historically redlined neighborhoods are more than twice as likely as others to go to the emergency room for asthma. The new research from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco, links decades of residential segregation to new findings of environmental racism. Disparities in housing contribute to disparities in the morbidity of asthma—one of the most common chronic diseases afflicting children.