Unpacking the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Education in Shaping Metabolic Health Inequities

<span style="font-weight: 400;">A growing body of research has shown that exposure to systemic racism has long-term health consequences for minority groups. However, there is a shortage of literature studying this relationship from an intersectionality lens by simultaneously considering multiple social identity characteristics such as race, gender, and educational level. I hypothesize that while a higher level of educational attainment may be generally associated with a lower metabolic risk score, this relationship will be significantly weaker for non-White participants, and especially so for Black women. To address this gap, I use data from Wave I and V of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to study the relationship between race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and metabolic risk score separately for women and men among U.S. adults ages 33-43. Firstly, I calculated and compared metabolic risk scores between ethnoracial and gender groups. Secondly, I used multivariate linear regression models to examine how race/ethnicity and education level affect metabolic risk scores for each gender. Overall, metabolic risk score was significantly reduced for participants who received a college degree and that the magnitude of this decrease was greater for women than for men. However, there are significant disparities between the metabolic scores of White women and those of Black and Mexican-origin women that are only slightly decreased by accounting for educational attainment. These results suggest that stark ethnoracial disparities exist in metabolic risk score, especially for women, and that education alone does not sizably reduce these disparities. My findings imply that other systemic factors contribute more significantly to health disparities, especially for women of color, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions that consider the intersectionality of race, gender, and education in addressing chronic health risks.</span>