Social Capital, Black Social Mobility, and Health Disparities

Abstract

This review aims to delineate the role of structural racism in the formation and accumulation of social capital and to describe how social capital is leveraged and used differently between Black and White people as a response to the conditions created by structural racism. We draw on critical race theory in public health praxis and restorative justice concepts to reimagine a race-conscious social capital agenda. We document how American capitalism has injured Black people and Black communities' unique construction of forms of social capital to combat systemic oppression. The article proposes an agenda that includes communal restoration that recognizes forms of social capital appreciated and deployed by Black people in the United States that can advance health equity and eliminate health disparities. Developing a race-conscious social capital framing that is inclusive of and guided by Black community members and academics is critical to the implementation of solutions that achieve racial and health equity and socioeconomic mobility.

Keywords: racial disparities; social capital; social mobility; structural racism.

Figure 1

Model for Black social capital and social mobility in Black communities. This model illustrates that systemic racism is the root causal factor working through structures that support access or restrict access to social and political determinants of health. These structures influence the forms and measures of social capital and the recognition of an explicit need to create and acknowledge social capital opportunities created through a Black person’s or Black community’s experience in America. All forms of social capital are subsequently filtered through social constructions of individual race that ultimately influence objective health and socioeconomic mobility.