Highlighting health consequences of racial disparities sparks support for action

Racial disparities arise across many vital areas of American life, including employment, health, and interpersonal treatment. For example, 1 in 3 Black children live in poverty (vs. 1 in 9 White children) and on average, Black Americans live 4 fewer years than White Americans. Which disparity is more likely to spark reduction efforts? We find that highlighting disparities in health-related (vs. economic) outcomes spurs greater social media engagement and support for disparity-mitigating policy. Further, reading about racial health disparities elicits greater support for action (e.g., protesting) than economic or belonging-based disparities. This occurs, in part, because people view health disparities as violating morally-sacred values which enhances perceived injustice. This work elucidates which manifestations of racial inequality are most likely to prompt Americans to action.

Methods
The data from Studies 1a, 1b, 3, 4a, and 4b were collected via online platfroms (i.e., Mturk.com, Prolific Academic, and NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel). All analyses were run in R with the R code provided (title: Health_Disparities_Syntax.R).