Analysis of 6-year NHANES data spanning 2007-2012 reveals that socioeconomic factors, particularly rental housing status, explain substantial portions of excess upper respiratory infection risk in Black (36.4%) and Mexican American (28.5%) children compared to White children. Among Black children, living in rental housing alone accounted for nearly half (49.6%) of the increased URI risk, while income poverty explained an additional 20%. The housing effect persisted even among children with asthma, suggesting environmental factors beyond individual health status drive these disparities. This finding challenges conventional focus on behavioral factors like obesity and smoking exposure, which showed minimal explanatory power. The rental housing association likely reflects multiple pathways: overcrowding, poor ventilation, mold exposure, and housing instability that compromise immune function and increase infection transmission. However, this preprint analysis awaits peer review, and the observational design cannot establish causation between housing tenure and respiratory outcomes. If validated, these results suggest that housing policy interventions—not just healthcare access—could meaningfully reduce racial health disparities, representing a paradigm shift toward addressing social determinants upstream of medical care.