Understanding and enhancing the well-being of boys and men of color

The well-being of boys and men of color is often looked at in fragmented ways, focusing on specific policy domains, markets, or industries. Work on education, for instance, produces various school “report cards” for boys, while labor analyses look at unemployment and poverty levels for men. While these analyses help researchers understand the nuanced dynamics within particular systems or markets, they can miss the structural linkages across systems that produce and reinforce trends. 

This work within various sectors is vital, but researchers and policymakers alike should not “miss the forest for the trees,” nor the paradigmatic approaches that cut across interrelated quality-of-life factors and institutions.  

Many of the structures that uplift or suppress well-being are concentrated in geographic areas. For instance, education, financing, housing discrimination, and unemployment are tightly braided systems that compound each other within cities and neighborhoods.   

Well-being frameworks can offer a new narrative on the complex lives of boys and men of color. Both objective measures such as life expectancy and suicide rates as well as subjective evaluations of well-being account for and include material assets, social connections, institutions, and points of view that are strongly associated with thriving and resilience—providing a more holistic view of the lives of boys and men of color.  

Previous models, theories, and frameworks of Black male well-being often center on individual failings, ignoring the structural and institutional conditions that create social, economic, and health challenges. Those who endorse these perspectives offer financial literacy, education, marriage, and discipline as solutions to problems such as lower educational attainment, concentrated poverty, intrapersonal violence, and HIV contraction. Suggestions for social or personal change often direct boys and men of color to move to neighborhoods that may offer some opportunity for advancement, but which may also increase the risk for racial and gender discrimination where they live, in workplace settings, and in schools, as well as increase their risk for police violence. 

This report moves toward a comprehensive framework that can examine interlocking structural factors that affect the well-being of boys and men of color. We explore outcomes of community conditions, public systems, and institutions that comprise structural factors associated with well-being, and present some aggregate analyses on select aspects of socioeconomic well-being, community health, and longevity. Throughout the report, we also review existing literature on the well-being of boys and men of color and outline a forward-looking research agenda. This work will build toward a forthcoming framework that distinguishes between structural conditions experienced in specific geographies, intermediate outcomes reflecting individual experiences, and the summative outcomes of life expectancy and subjective well-being that we should work toward improving. 

Rather than treating outcomes as products of individual circumstance, our framework will endeavor to trace how structural and social conditions shape how long people live and how they assess the quality of their lives. The framework will ultimately address four domains. 

• Longevity outcomes: Life expectancy; years of potential life lost; age- and cause-specific mortality; and avoidable or preventable death. 
• Well-being outcomes: Physical and mental health; serious psychological distress; loneliness; housing and food security; labor market outcomes; and educational progression. 
• Structural conditions and systems: Housing and neighborhood conditions; transportation; environmental exposure; health care access; institutional racism and discrimination; immigration and language access; public safety; criminal-legal contact; and the distribution of public resources. 
• Social and human development: Education and opportunities to learn; economic security; health and wellness; and community well-being, including safety, belonging, connection, and civic agency. 

Together, these domains of well-being cover both objective or observable outcomes as well as subjective ones that individuals can perceive. As a first step to understanding well-being among boys and men of color, we analyzed several datasets, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS); the National Center for Health Statistics’ Life Tables; the Census Bureau’s 2020-2024 American Community Survey (ACS); and CDC Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates (PLACES). Collectively, they provide insights into several of the well-being domains outlined above. 

We define “men of color” to include Latino or Hispanic men and non-Hispanic men identifying as Black, American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN), Asian American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or multiracial. Non-Hispanic white men are excluded from this category. The analysis covers adult men ages 18 and older in the 2020-2024 ACS five-year sample.  

How long and how well do people of color live?  

Life expectancy summarizes many biological and non-biological influences on our lives—or what researchers call the “social determinants of health.” Unlike other summary measures of well-being and health, life expectancy can be readily analyzed using the same data and methods across most U.S. counties and metropolitan areas.  

In 2023, national average life expectancy was 70.3 years for non-Hispanic Black males, compared to 76 for white males, 78.5 for Latino or Hispanic males, and 83.2 for Asian American males. Rates exceeded 100 deaths per 100,000 for Black males ages 15 to 24 in 118 counties and for those ages 25 to 44 in 90 counties. More than one-quarter of these counties were in Arkansas, Louisiana, or Mississippi. 

Our analysis reveals that in 2024, unintentional injury (motor vehicle crashes, drownings, falls, etc.) was the largest contributor to premature mortality among Black males, accounting for 22.5% of all years of potential life lost, followed by homicide at 17% and heart disease at 12.7%. Together, unintentional injury, homicide, and suicide accounted for nearly 45% of all premature deaths, demonstrating that preventable injuries and violence impose a substantially greater burden on Black male longevity than is apparent from overall death counts alone. 

The CDC, which uses multiple databases to track mortality and morbidity, identified homicide as the leading cause of death for Black males ages 15 to 24 in 2021. A county-level study found the highest 2019 homicide rates were among Black males ages 15 to 24 (74.6 per 100,000) and ages 25 to 44 (70 per 100,000), followed by AIAN males in those age groups, while also documenting enormous variation across counties. 

Literature on Black mortality shows that life expectancy gaps are highest in the rural South and Midwest, with some majority-Black urban counties showing life expectancies close to or above the national average. This provides evidence that place, not race alone, carries substantial explanatory weight once other factors are held constant.  

The Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) collect individual-level data within geographic boundaries across the country. Analysis of well-being data in these locales provides insights into the connections between well-being, race, and place.  

Figure 1 shows the population share of men of color and the share of residents reporting fair or poor health across PUMAs. Overall, the share of men of color in a PUMA positively predicts for more residents reporting fair or poor health (r = 0.495). The upward slope of the red line indicates a positive correlation.  

The variation of outcomes by place reinforces the idea that neighborhood conditions influence well-being, and the places where people of color live can be improved through investment and development.  

By race, Latino or Hispanic (r = 0.503), Black (r = 0.329), and AIAN (r = 0.108) men all show a positive correlation between their share of a PUMA’s population and the percentage of residents reporting fair or poor health. Asian American males show a negative correlation; in other words, places with a larger Asian American male population share have lower rates of fair or poor health among all adults.  

Neighborhood conditions drive stress, poor mental health, and deaths of despair 

The risks of not addressing the neighborhood conditions of health are most dramatic when looking at “deaths of despair”: suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholic liver disease. The phrase was initially developed to explain rising mortality among middle-aged white Americans, but the latest evidence shows that these deaths are neither uniquely “white” nor driven by the same causes across racial groups. Among non-Hispanic Black adults ages 45 to 54, the combined deaths-of-despair rate nearly tripled from 36.24 per 100,000 in 2013 to 103.81 in 2022—slightly exceeding the corresponding white rate of 102.63. This increase was driven primarily by overdose and alcohol-related mortality rather than suicide. 

Men and boys often lack the social-emotional supports that help them cope with economic and societal shifts. Psychologists offer that there is a mismatch between rigid masculinity norms and the new demands of a rapidly changing society. Fewer traditionally “male” manufacturing jobs and more service jobs force many men into roles they find hard to navigate. In addition, the increase of men electing to drop out of the job market creates burdens for themselves and their families. These conditions are a chronic problem for Black men, who have historically posted higher unemployment rates, as well as Latino or Hispanic men, who must contend with language and immigration issues. 

We also analyzed reports of lack of emotional support and loneliness and their association with race and place, again using PUMAs (see Figure 4). The strongest positive associations between lack of emotional support/loneliness and race/ethnicity appear in places with larger Latino or Hispanic and Black male population shares. This pattern points to a research agenda on social connection, service access, immigration, language access, neighborhood displacement, and exposure to violence. 

These statistics and findings reveal outcomes shaped by race and place, which strongly suggest the amalgamation of economic, social, and psychological distress at the geographic scale. In other words, the factors that erode well-being are organized by the places where men of color reside.  

The power of place on economic security, health, and well-being 

Scholars across disciplines have long made connections between race and place, and our research also sees a correlation between the share of men of color in a specific place and neighborhood conditions. 

A 2023 report by Dyer et al., identified nine interconnected domains through which structural racism shapes neighborhood conditions, finding that their combined measure is more strongly associated with life expectancy and health than other commonly used indices. A 2024 report by Mariana C. Arcaya, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Justin Steil similarly argues that health reflects interlocking neighborhood systems—including housing, schools, transportation, public safety, environmental conditions, and public services—rather than any single factor. 

The cumulative effects of these interconnected systems contribute to poorer health outcomes that increase the likelihood of premature mortality and lower life expectancy. Reflecting this mechanism, research finds that persistent neighborhood disadvantage from youth through middle adulthood has been associated with premature mortality. A book by one of the authors of this report connects property, business ownership, wealth, education, health, and social mobility to “the ultimate means of power: life itself, and the longevity of Black communities.” Building on this perspective, our framing puts forth an agenda to identify institutional and other factors needed for all men of color to thrive.  

Labor economics literature documents that Black and Latino or Hispanic men have consistently higher unemployment and lower labor force participation rates than white men across the business cycle. These gaps widen rather than narrow during recessions, suggesting cyclical economic shocks fall disproportionately on men of color specifically rather than on households of color broadly. 

At the individual level, Black, AIAN, and Latino or Hispanic men hold lower wealth and fewer assets, and have higher rates of poverty. As Figure 5 shows, Black and Latino or Hispanic men consistently rank worse than their peers across income, poverty, and homeownership. 

In their widely cited 2016 report on the connection between income and life expectancy, economist Raj Chetty and colleagues found that higher incomes were associated with greater longevity throughout the income distribution, resulting in a life expectancy gap between the richest 1% and poorest 1% of 14.6 years for men and 10.1 years for women. The causal pathway between income and health is intuitive: People will use their discretionary income to make their lives healthier. In addition, places with more resources provide more opportunities that are life-sustaining for their residents.  

Racial disparities in wealth and income reveal themselves in greater economic insecurity and hardship in places with higher population shares of men of color. Figure 6 demonstrates this strong correlation, which partially explains why many communities struggle as their men do—individuals and other people living in those neighborhoods share those burdens. In addition, hardship may not only be aggregated up, but may also follow men of color where they live.

The pattern here is consistent: Structural conditions such as housing insecurity, lack of transportation, and utility shutoffs are directly correlated with the population share of men of color in PUMAs. Food insecurity and lack of health insurance access are also more prevalent in PUMAs with higher population shares of men of color. 

The relationship between race and neighborhood conditions is not surprising; American place-based policy has long been racially discriminatory by design. But the uniformity of these disparities across the 40 states in this analysis moves the explanatory lens beyond individual behavior or local idiosyncrasies. These data should be interpreted as correlations and not causations. However, the consistency of the evidence strongly suggests that places are actors influencing outcomes, not strictly the other way around.

The disaggregated results in Figure 7 reveal significant disparities between aggregated “men of color” category. It shows that PUMAs with higher Black and Latino or Hispanic male population shares show strong positive correlations with several hardship measures, while Asian American male population shares are negatively correlated with many of these measures. These should be interpreted as correlations and not causations. 

Connecting place and well-being 

This report frames the issues impacting boys and men of color through a multidimensional understanding of well-being, synthesizing evidence across education, economic security, health and wellness, and community conditions. But it also recognizes that substantial variation exists across racial and ethnic groups and presents preliminary place-based analyses showing how structural conditions can accumulate and reinforce one another. 

Because many public policies are place-based, we should not only look at outcomes in locales as aggregated outcomes. Places carry preconditions that can influence outcomes. Building on this knowledge, this report proposes a research agenda to identify the institutional conditions, community assets, and measurable system-level benchmarks associated with longer, healthier, and happier lives for boys and men of color.  

Racialized systems create common constraints, but their observable consequences are experienced differently across Black, Latino or Hispanic, AIAN, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and multiracial boys and men of color. This work extends previous research that reported higher life expectancies and higher per capita incomes for Black men in 66 counties where they had lower mortality rates than white men. A core feature of these geographic areas was their proximity to a military installation, with 97% of the 66 counties home or adjacent to a military installation, which can often support local economies but also may increase cost-of-living pressures. 

For this report, we show and examine outcomes in areas that reflect these different experiences, including economic security; mental health and deaths of despair; and longevity gaps and premature mortality. Our goal is to provide communities and decisionmakers with a roadmap to identify where and why systems are reproducing deprivation in some places but supporting boys and men of color in others.  

Our forthcoming research agenda 

From this initial analysis, we can see that places can be considered “actors” in that they seemingly are not neutral. Our goal is to identify places where boys and men of color live longer and report higher well-being, which includes economic and health measures as well as measures of subjective well-being. Future research for this series will aim to detect places where multiple structural and non-structural factors jointly provide opportunity and safety. Based on our preliminary analysis, we propose pursuing the following research questions: 

• Where are the largest well-being and longevity gaps by age and racial group? 
• Which local area conditions are linked to longevity and better health? 
• Which community assets differentiate thriving places from deprived ones?  
• What system-level conditions can policymakers track over time to measure well-being? 

Cumulatively, future reports in this research series should provide a roadmap for decisionmakers and advocates to improve quality of life among boys and men of color, who are often overlooked in policy conversations.