SEGREGATION'S LINK WITH BLACK HEALTH IN HISTORY.

• Position: YOUR LIFE

Historically, racial housing segregation in the U.S. had some unexpected relationships with how long both blacks and whites lived, suggests a study in the journal Social Science & Medicine. Using data from North Carolina from 1909-75, researchers found that racially segregated areas generally had higher mortality rates--in both urban and rural communities--but, surprisingly, blacks sometimes lived longer in segregated areas than they did in more integrated environments, while whites had shorter life spans in segregated rural locations.

Results show that whites lived roughly 10 years longer than blacks during the time studied, but findings differed by levels of segregation and whether people lived in urban or rural settings. For black adults, living in segregated urban and rural areas was associated with a longer life span. For example, urban black females living in highly segregated sections lived about five years longer than those in neighborhoods with average levels of segregation. For black men, the result was even more pronounced--nearly 10 years. In rural areas, blacks also lived longer when more highly segregated.

Economist and coauthor Trevon Logan says he suspects that segregation may have been...