Your zip code might be making you sick.

A new study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that where people live plays more of a role in health disparities than was known before.

Researchers studied a racially mixed neighborhood in Baltimore and found that disparities commonly found among the races were less prevalant or didn't exist at all. Disparities in hypertension, diabetes, obesity among women and use of health services were less common.

The results of the study are published in this month's issue of Health Affairs.

“Most of the current health disparities literature fails to account for the fact that the nation is largely segregated, leaving racial groups exposed to different health risks and with variable access to health services based on where they live,” Thomas LaVeist, lead author of the study and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, said in a statement. “By comparing black and white Americans who are exposed to the same set of socioeconomic, social and environmental conditions we were better equipped to discern the impact of race on health-related outcomes and have concluded social factors are essentially equalized when racial disparities are minimized.”

LaVeist and colleagues identified communities in the U.S. containing a population of at least 35 percent African American and 35 percent white residents, and where the African Americans and white residents have similar income and education.

Two communities in Baltimore were selected as study sites and in-person interviews were conducted with adult residents. Blood pressure was also measured among a number of study participants.

The researchers used various national health databases for comparison.

They found that racial differences in social environments explained a significant portion of disparities typically found in national data.

“When whites are exposed to the health risks of an urban environment their health status is compromised similarly to that of blacks, who more commonly live in such communities,” said Darrell Gaskin, co-author of the study and deputy director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and an associate professor with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management."