The Structural Racism Effect Index (SREI) is composed of 9 domains:

  • Built Environment

  • Criminal Justice

  • Education

  • Employment

  • Housing

  • Income & Poverty

  • Social Cohesion

  • Transportation

  • Wealth

These domains were established through a thorough review of structural racism literature, identifying existing methods to quantify structural racism. The SREI collates variables across all of these existing domains to create scores for most census tracts in the country.

Color-coded map of the United States showing the intensity of structural racism by region, area, state, neighborhood compared to the Area Deprivation index (ADI), a key tool for health equity research.

Domains and Variables

  • Building vacancy rate

    Mobile homes

    No internet access

    Cancer risk

    Low food access for SNAP recipients

  • Pretrial jail rate

    Total jail rate

    Law enforcement personnel per capita

  • No bachelor’s degree

    Highest degree high school diploma

    Per pupil spending

  • Unemployed

    Low white collar occupations

    Low retail job availability

  • Eviction rate

    Foreclosure risk

    Units without telephone

    Units without plumbing

    Crowding

    Group quarters

  • Below federal poverty level

    Below 200% poverty level

    Public assistance

    Family income

    Per capita income

    Supplemental poverty measure

  • Residential Segregation

    Changed address in the past year

    Single-parent household

    Income gap

  • Transportation cost burden

    Carpooled to work

    No access to motor vehicle

    Low public transportation

    Low walking

    Low biking

  • Aggregate home value

    Median real estate taxes paid

    Median home value

    Median gross rent

    Median monthly mortgage

    Owner-occupied homes

National Census-Tract-Level Distribution of Life Expectancy, Diabetes Prevalence, and Ethnoracial Composition: by SREI and Domain Scores

A table displaying various social and economic indicators across different deciles with data on outcomes, indices, and percentages reporting diabetes, and people of color.

From the Appendix of the Health Affairs paper.

Each domain of the SREI is independently correlated with poor health outcomes and the the ethnoracial composition of a neighborhood. Unlike some area measures of the Social Determinants of Health, the SREI uses racism, not race, to explain inequities between neighborhoods. With the exception of ethnoracial segregation, the SREI does not use any measure of race or ethnicity in its composition.