This exploratory study sought to test the relationship among race, self-rated health (SRH), and colorblindness, conceptualized as the belief that race/ethnicity should not and does not matter. Independently, SRH, a multidimensional concept entailing physical and psychological health and one's affiliation in an ethnic/racial group, may contribute to racial attitudes. However, little is known about how SRH and racial/ethnic identity in combination may affect colorblind racial attitudes. It was thus hypothesized that SRH would moderate the relationship between race/ethnicity and colorblind racial attitudes. The research sample consisted of 136 autochthonous adults and "individuals with migration backgrounds" residing in Bavaria (Germany), who were divided by self-identified race (whites, n = 85; non-whites, n = 51). The results show that SRH moderates the relationship between race and racial colorblindness. More specifically, it was found that the greater the SRH of the white participants, the less they embraced a colorblind ideology. Conversely, the greater the SRH of the non-white participants, the greater their colorblind racial attitudes. These results suggest that stronger SRH may reduce colorblindness among whites and intensify it among non-whites. The implications of the obtained results may be useful in addressing how surmount barriers to data collection, measurements, and research related to racial and ethnic health disparities in "colorblind" Germany may contribute to health inequalities. Thus, this paper's contribution lies in tracking such disparities to aid their reduction or elimination.

Faculty of Business Administration University of Economics Prague W Churchill Sq 4 130 67 Prague 3 Czech Republic

See more in PubMed

Branton RP, Jones BS. Reexamining racial attitudes: the conditional relationship between diversity and socioeconomic environment. Am J Polit Sci. 2005;49:359–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00128.x . DOI

Katz I, Glass DC, Cohen S. Ambivalence, guilt, and the scapegoating of minority group victims. J Exp Soc Psychol. 1973;9:423–36. DOI

Belcher C. A black man in the white house: Barack Obama and the triggering of America’s racial-aversion crisis. Water Street Press; 2016.

Pittman CT. Do we act the way we think? Multicultural education and the disconnect between racial attitudes and behaviors in college students. Doctoral thesis. University of Michigan. 2004. https://search.proquest.com/docview/287943915 . Accessed 11 Jun 2019.

Richeson JA, Nussbaum RJ. The impact of multiculturalism versus color-blindness on racial bias. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2004;40:417–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2003.09.002 . DOI

Beeman A. Walk the walk but don’t talk the talk: the strategic use of color-blind ideology in an interracial social movement organization. Socio Forum. 2015;30:127–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12148 . DOI

Bonilla-Silva E, Forman TA. “I am not a racist but…”: mapping white college students’ racial ideology in the USA. Discourse Soc. 2000;11:50–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926500011001003 . DOI

Hastie B, Rimmington D. “200 years of white affirmative action”: discourse in discussions of racial inequality. Discourse Soc. 2014;25:186–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513516050 . DOI

Neville HA. Rationalizing the racial order: racial color-blindness as a legitimizing ideology. In: Koditschek T, Cha-Jua SK, Neville HA, editors. Race struggles. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press; 2009. p. 115–37.

Neville HA, Worthington RL, Spanierman LB. Race, power, and multicultural counseling psychology: understanding white privilege and color-blind racial attitudes. In: Ponterotto JG, Casas JM, Suzuki LA, Alexander CM, editors. Handbook of multicultural counseling, vol. 12. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 2001. p. 257–88. https://doi.org/10.1037/1099-9809.12.2.275 . DOI

Bailey ZD, Krieger N, Agénor M, Graves J, Linos N, Bassett MT. Structural racism and health inequities in the USA: evidence and interventions. Lancet. 2017;389:1453–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30569-X . PubMed DOI

Cunningham BA, Scarlato AS. Ensnared by colorblindness: discourse on health care disparities. Ethn Dis. 2018;28:235. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.28.S1.235 . PubMed DOI PMC

Manning A, Hartmann D, Gerteis J. Colorblindness in black and white: an analysis of core tenets, configurations, and complexities. Sociol Race Ethn. 2015;4:532–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649215584828 . DOI

Roig E. Uttering “race” in colorblind France and post-racial Germany. In: El M, editor. K Fereidooni K. Springer VS: Rassismuskritik und Widerstandsformen. Wiesbaden; 2017. p. 613–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-14721-1_36 . DOI

Müller UA. Far away so close: race, whiteness, and German identity. Identities. 2011;18:620–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289x.2011.672863 . DOI

Zantop S. Colonial legends, postcolonial legacies. In: Denham SD, Kacandes I, Petropoulos J, editors. A user’s guide to German cultural studies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 1997. p. 189–205. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11133 . DOI

Goldberg D. Racial Europeanization. Racial Europeanization Ethn Racial Stud. 2006;29:331–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870500465611 . DOI

Statistisches Bundesamt. Bevölkerung und Erwerbstätigkeit. Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund – Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2016. Fachserie 1 Reihe 2.2. Wiesbaden: Destatis. 2017. [German Office of Statistics. Population with a migration background – results from the microcensus 2016. Subject-matter series 1, series 2.2. Wiesbaden: The Federal Statistical Office. Destatis. 2017]. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Migration-Integration/_inhalt.html?__blob=publicationFile . Accessed 3 Jan 2020.

Alvarez-Galvez J, Salvador-Carulla L. Perceived discrimination and self-rated health in Europe: evidence from the European social survey. PLoS One. 2013;8:e74252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0074252 . PubMed DOI PMC

Jylhä M. What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model. Soc Sci Med. 2009;69:307–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.05.013 . PubMed DOI

Maddox G. Some correlates of differences in self-assessment of health among the elderly. J Gerontol. 1962;17:180–5. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronj/17.2.180 . PubMed DOI

Garrity TF, Somes GW, Marx MB. Factors influencing self-assessment of health. Soc Sci Med. 1978;12:77–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/0271-7123(78)90032-9 . PubMed DOI

Ferraro KF, Kelley-Moore JA. Self-rated health and mortality among black and white adults: examining the dynamic evaluation thesis. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2001;56:S195–205. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/56.4.s195 . PubMed DOI

Todorova IL, Tucker KL, Jimenez MP, Lincoln AK, Arevalo S, Falcón LM. Determinants of self-rated health and the role of acculturation: implications for health inequalities. Ethn Health. 2013;18:563–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2013.771147 . PubMed DOI

Best R, Souders DJ, Charness N, Mitzner TL, Rogers WA. The role of health status in older adults’ perceptions of the usefulness of eHealth technology. In: Zhou J, Salvendy G, editors. International conference on human aspects of IT for the aged population. Cham: Springer; 2015. p. 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20913-5_1 . DOI

Mossey JM, Shapiro E. Self-rated health: a predictor of mortality among the elderly. Am J Publ Health. 1982;72:800–8. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.72.8.800 . DOI

Idler EL, Benyamini Y. Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies. J Health Soc Behav. 1997;38:21–37. https://doi.org/10.2307/2955359 . PubMed DOI

Latham K, Peek CW. Self-rated health and morbidity onset among late midlife US adults. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2012;68:107–16. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbs104 . PubMed DOI PMC

Subramanian SV, Huijts T, Avendano M. Self-reported health assessments in the 2002 world health survey: how do they correlate with education? Bull World Health Organ. 2010;88:131–8. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.09.067058 . PubMed DOI

Statistisches Bundesamt. Bevölkerung und Erwerbstätigkeit. Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund – Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2015. Wiesbaden: Destatis. 2016. [German Office of Statistics. Population with a migration background – results from the microcensus 2015. Wiesbaden: Destatis. 2016]. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Migration-Integration/Publikationen/Downloads-Migration/migrationshintergrund-2010220187004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile . Accessed 3 Jan 2020.

Marketingverein der Europäischen Metropolregion Nürnberg e.V. “Nuremberg Metropolitan Region” (PDF; 379 kb). 2018. https://www.revolvy.com/page/Nuremberg-Metropolitan-Region . Accessed 1 Oct 2018.

Neville HA, Lilly RL, Duran G, Lee RM, Browne L. Construction and initial validation of the color-blind racial attitudes scale (CoBRAS). J Counsel Psychol. 2000;47:59–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.47.1.59 . DOI

Neville HA, Low K, Walters JM, Landrum-Brown J, Liao H. Linking racial ideology to race-targeted attitudes and social action. Toronto, Canada: Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association; 2003. https://doi.org/10.1037/e353582004-001 . DOI

Arndt S, Ofuatey-Alazard N. Wie Rassismus aus Wörtern spricht. Kerben des Kolonialismus im Wissensarchiv deutsche Sprache. Ein kritisches Nachschlagewerk. [how racism speaks through words. Notches/heirs of colonialism in the knowledge archive German language. A critical reference guide]. Münster: Unrast Verlag; 2011.

Salentin K. Sampling the ethnic minority population in Germany. The background to “migration background”. Methods, Data, Analyses. 2014;8:28. https://doi.org/10.12758/mda.2014.002 . DOI

Bruce-Jones E. Race, space, and the nation-state: racial recognition and the prospects for substantive equality under anti-discrimination law in France and Germany. Columbia Hum Right Law Rev. 2007;39:423.

Williams DR, Sternthal M. Understanding racial-ethnic disparities in health: sociological contributions. J Health Soc Behav. 2010;51:s15–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146510383838 . PubMed DOI PMC

Crenshaw KW. Seeing race again: countering colorblindness across the disciplines. Berkley: University of California Press; 2019. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520972148 .

Williams DR, Collins C. Racial residential segregation: a fundamental cause of racial disparities in health. Publ Health Rep. 2016;116:404–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0033-3549(04)50068-7 . DOI

Fujishiro K. Is perceived racial privilege associated with health? Findings from the behavioral risk factor surveillance system. Soc Sci Med. 2009;68:840–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.12.007 . PubMed DOI

Garbarski D. Research in and prospects for the measurement of health using self-rated health. Publ Opin Q. 2016;80:977–97. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw033 . DOI

Razum O. Migrant mortality, healthy migrant effect. In: Kirch W, editor. Encyclopedia of Public Health Springer: Dordrecht https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5614-7_2188 , 2008.