Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec;99(6):959-983.
doi: 10.1007/s11524-022-00665-z. Epub 2022 Aug 1.

The Relationship of Historical Redlining with Present-Day Neighborhood Environmental and Health Outcomes: A Scoping Review and Conceptual Model

Carolyn B Swope  1 , Diana Hernández  2 , Lara J Cushing  3
Affiliations

The Relationship of Historical Redlining with Present-Day Neighborhood Environmental and Health Outcomes: A Scoping Review and Conceptual Model

Carolyn B Swope et al. J Urban Health. 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Following the Great Depression and related home foreclosures, the federal government established new agencies to facilitate access to affordable home mortgages, including the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) and Federal Housing Administration (FHA). HOLC and FHA directed widespread neighborhood appraisals to determine investment risk, referred to as "redlining," which took into account residents' race. Redlining thereby contributed to segregation, disinvestment, and racial inequities in opportunities for homeownership and wealth accumulation. Recent research examines associations between historical redlining and subsequent environmental determinants of health and health-related outcomes. In this scoping review, we assess the extent of the current body of evidence, the range of outcomes studied, and key study characteristics, examining the direction and strength of the relationship between redlining, neighborhood environments, and health as well as different methodological approaches. Overall, studies nearly universally report evidence of an association between redlining and health-relevant outcomes, although heterogeneity in study design precludes direct comparison of results. We critically consider evidence regarding HOLC's causality and offer a conceptual framework for the relationship between redlining and present-day health. Finally, we point to key directions for future research to improve and broaden understanding of redlining's enduring impact and translate findings into public health and planning practice.

Keywords: Environmental justice; HOLC; Health disparities; Housing; Segregation; Structural racism.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
HOLC map of Oakland, CA. Published by the Mapping Inequality project [7] under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
PRISMA flowchart showing the study selection process
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Geographic distribution of studies reporting results specific to a particular city or state (N = 33), and indicating with arrow the number of cities per region with redlining maps digitized by mapping inequality to date
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Conceptual model of the pathway from historical redlining to present-day health outcomes
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Rothstein R. The color of law : a forgotten history of how our government segregated America. New York ; London: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company; 2018.
    1. Faber JW. We built this: consequences of new deal era intervention in America’s racial geography. Am Sociol Rev. 2020;85(5):739–775. doi: 10.1177/0003122420948464. - DOI
    1. Woods LL, Shaw-Ridley M, Woods CA. Can health equity coexist with housing inequalities? A contemporary issue in historical context. Health Promot Pract. 2014;15(4):476–482. doi: 10.1177/1524839914533568. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Greer J. The home owners’ loan corporation and the development of the residential security maps. J Urban Hist. 2013;39(2):275–296. doi: 10.1177/0096144212436724. - DOI
    1. Michney TM. How the city survey’s redlining maps were made: a closer look at HOLC’s mortgagee rehabilitation division. J Plan Hist. Published online May 7, 2021:15385132211013360. 10.1177/15385132211013361

Publication types