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Residential segregation is associated with poor health-including poor birth outcomes-among African Americans in US cities and metropolitan areas. However, the few existing studies of this relationship among Mexican-origin women have produced mixed results. In this study, the relationship between segregation and very preterm birth was examined with National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) data on singleton births to African American women (n = 400,718) in 238 metropolitan areas and to Mexican-origin women (n = 552,382) in 170 metropolitan areas. The study evaluated 1) whether residential segregation is positively associated with very preterm birth among both African American and Mexican-origin women and 2) if so, whether exposure to neighborhood poverty accounts for these associations. Results from multi-level analysis indicate that residential segregation is positively associated with very preterm birth among both groups of women. However, this association is robust across different measures of segregation only for African Americans. Conversely, differences across metropolitan areas in average levels of exposure to neighborhood poverty account for the positive association between segregation and very preterm birth among Mexican-origin women, but not among African American women.

Vouchers have come to be seen as a tool for promoting economic and racial/ethnic integration. Discrimination based on Source of Income (SOI), however, could hinder the use of vouchers to move to more desirable neighborhoods. State and local SOI anti-discrimination laws (SOI laws) are one policy response to address this issue. SOI laws make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against voucher recipients solely on the basis of their having a voucher. The research presented here tested whether SOI laws in the USA improve locational outcomes for voucher recipients. This research found that the impacts of SOI laws on locational outcomes are mixed. We found substantively important reductions in neighborhood poverty rates associated with the implementation of SOI laws and small but statistically significant reductions in minority concentration as well. The concentration of voucher recipients in a neighborhood, however, does not appear to be related to SOI law implementation.

Theory suggests that the impact of neighborhood poverty depends on both the duration and timing of exposure. Previous research, however, has not properly analyzed the sequence of neighborhoods to which children are exposed throughout the early life course. This study investigates the effects of different longitudinal patterns of exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods on the risk of adolescent parenthood. It follows a cohort of children in the PSID from age 4 to 19 and uses novel methods for time-varying exposures that overcome critical limitations of conventional regression when selection processes are dynamic. Results indicate that sustained exposure to poor neighborhoods substantially increases the risk of becoming a teen parent and that exposure to neighborhood poverty during adolescence may be more consequential than exposure earlier during childhood.

Hurricane Katrina induced hundreds of thousands of New Orleans citizens to evacuate and relocate to different neighborhoods. Some of these evacuees moved to neighborhoods with poverty rates lower than the one they left in New Orleans. With survey data on a small sample of black Katrina evacuees who registered for absentee voter ballots, this paper explores whether or not there were improvements in the welfare of black evacuees— neighborhood effects—as a result of moving to neighborhoods with a lower poverty rate. With data from a small sample of relocated Katrina evacuees, we provide matching estimates of the short-run treatment effect of different types of changes in neighborhood poverty on five different measures of individual welfare. Treatment parameter estimates reveal—conditional upon the change in origin to destination neighborhood poverty rate—positive neighborhood effects mostly for black evacuees who did not move from high poverty to low poverty neighborhoods, but could have. Our results suggest that at least in the short-run, antipoverty policies based on housing mobility and changing the poverty characteristics of neighborhoods are not necessarily effective in improving the welfare of poor black households.

We compare the employment of African American and white youth as they transition to adulthood from age 18 to 22, focusing on high school graduates and high school dropouts who did not attend college. Using OLS and hazard models, we analyze the relative employment rates, and employment consistency, stability, and timing, controlling for a number of factors including family income, academic aptitude, prior work experience, and neighborhood poverty. We find white high school graduates work significantly more than all other youth on most measures; African American high school graduates work as much and sometimes less than white high school dropouts; African American dropouts work significantly less than all other youth. Findings further suggest that the improved labor market participation associated with a high school diploma is higher over time for African Americans than for white youth.

Black residential segregation has been declining in the United States. That accomplishment rings hollow, however, if blacks continue to live in much poorer neighborhoods than other Americans. This study uses census data for all US metropolitan areas in 1980 and 2010 to compare decline in the neighborhood poverty gap between blacks and other Americans with decline in the residential segregation of blacks. We find that both declines resulted primarily from narrowing differences between blacks and whites as opposed to narrowing differences between blacks and Hispanics or blacks and Asians. Because black-white differences in neighborhood poverty declined much faster than black-white segregation, the neighborhood poverty disadvantage of blacks declined faster than black segregation-a noteworthy finding because the narrowing of the racial gap in neighborhood poverty for blacks has gone largely unnoticed. Further analysis reveals that the narrowing of the gap was produced by change in both the medians and shapes of the distribution of poverty across the neighborhoods where blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians reside.

A systematic analysis of residential segregation and spatial interaction by income reveals that as income rises, minority access to integrated neighborhoods, higher levels of interaction with whites, and more affluent neighbors also increase. However, the income payoffs are much lower for African Americans than other groups, especially Asians. Although Hispanics and Asians have always displayed declining levels of minority-white dissimilarity and rising levels of minority-white interaction with rising income, income differentials on these outcomes for blacks did not appear until 1990 and since then have improved at a very slow pace. Given their higher overall levels of segregation and income's limited effect on residential attainment, African Americans experience less integration, more neighborhood poverty at all levels of income compared to other minority groups. The degree of black spatial disadvantage is especially acute in the nation's 21 hypersegregated metropolitan areas.

Background Studies of neighborhood racial composition or neighborhood poverty in association with pregnancy-related weight are limited. Prior studies of neighborhood racial density and poverty has been in association with adverse birth outcomes and suggest that neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and racial composition of black residents are typically segregated and systematically isolated from opportunities and resources. These neighborhood factors may help explain the racial disparities in pre-pregnancy weight and inadequate weight gain. This study examined whether neighborhood racial composition and neighborhood poverty was associated with weight before pregnancy and weight gain during pregnancy and if this association differed by race. Methods We used vital birth records of singleton births of 73,061 non-Hispanic black and white women in Allegheny County, PA (2003–2010). Maternal race and ethnicity, pre-pregnancy body-mass-index (BMI), gestational weight gain and other individual-level characteristics were derived from vital birth record data, and measures of neighborhood racial composition (percentage of black residents in the neighborhood) and poverty (percentage of households in the neighborhood below the federal poverty) were derived using US Census data. Multilevel log binomial regression models were performed to estimate neighborhood racial composition and poverty in association with pre-pregnancy weight (i.e., overweight/obese) and gestational weight gain (i.e., inadequate and excessive). Results Black women as compared to white women were more likely to be overweight/obese before pregnancy and to have inadequate gestational weight gain (53.6% vs. 38.8%; 22.5% vs. 14.75 respectively). Black women living in predominately black neighborhoods were slightly more likely to be obese prior to pregnancy compared to black women living in predominately white neighborhoods (PR 1.10; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.16). Black and white women living in high poverty areas compared with women living in lower poverty areas were more likely to be obese prior to pregnancy; while only white women living in high poverty areas compared to low poverty areas were more likely gain an inadequate amount of weight during pregnancy. Conclusions Neighborhood racial composition and poverty may be important in understanding racial differences in weight among childbearing women., Highlights • Black women living in predominately black neighborhoods were slightly more likely to be obese prior to pregnancy compared to black women living in predominately white neighborhoods. • Black and white women living in high poverty areas compared with women living in lower poverty areas were more likely to be obese prior to pregnancy. • Only white women living in high poverty areas compared to low poverty areas were more likely gain an inadequate amount of weight during pregnancy.

Using survey data from participants in a public housing relocation program in Atlanta, Georgia, we examine post-relocation changes in healthcare access (having a usual source of care, having an unmet need) and utilization (receiving a medical exam). Although participants moved to safer, less impoverished neighborhoods, some participants experienced improvements in access and utilization whereas others experienced declines. The supply of healthcare providers in the new neighborhood and having health insurance were associated with improvements in access for this population. Future relocation efforts may seek to assist individuals with choosing a new neighborhood that has accessible healthcare resources for low-income populations.

Trends in concentrated neighborhood poverty in the United States have been volatile over the past several decades. Using data from the 1980 to 2000 decennial census and the 2010-2014 American Community Survey, we examine the association between concentrated poverty across metropolitan areas in the United States and key proximate factors, including overall changes in poverty, racial residential segregation, and income segregation. One of our unique contributions is assessing the relative contribution of each of these to long-term trends in such poverty using a decomposition analysis. We find that changes in the segregation of the poor explained the largest share of the change in concentrated poverty over most of the time period, with the exception of the 1990s, where the plunge in both black and white poverty rates had the largest role in explaining the considerable decline in concentrated poverty in that decade for both groups. The association between racial segregation and black concentrated poverty is positive but weaker, indicating that without declines in black segregation, concentrated poverty would have been higher. Overall, growing income segregation, along with weak economic performance in recent years, have put more poor people at risk for living in high-poverty communities.

We analyze the long-term effects of neighborhood poverty and crime on negative self-feelings of young adults. Cumulative and relative disadvantage explanations are tested with the interactive effect of (1) neighborhood and individual-level economic disadvantage and (2) neighborhood crime and economic disadvantage. Results from a longitudinal study following adolescents to young adulthood show that the development of negative self-feelings (a combination of depression, anxiety, and self-derogation) is determined by relative, rather than cumulative disadvantage. The poor in affluent neighborhoods have the highest negative self-feelings, while the relatively wealthy in poor neighborhoods have the lowest negative self-feelings. Similarly, we find the highest increase in negative self-feelings is found in an affluent neighborhood with crime and not in a poor neighborhood with crime.

This study applies differential association and social control theories to childhood negative behaviors. Using a path analysis model, relationships between poverty, neighborhood SES, and parenting are explored. Analyses suggest that decreases in rates of poverty and increases in neighborhood SES lead to decreased negative behaviors, and aggravation with parenting is the greatest predictor of negative behavior.

Background: Poverty is associated with increased risk of chronic illness, but its contribution to bloodstream infections is not well-defined. Methods: We performed a multicenter observational study of 14,657 patients, aged 18 yrs or older, who received critical care and had blood cultures drawn between 1997 and 2007 in two hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts. Data sources included 1990 U.s. Census and hospital administrative data. Census tracts were used as the geographic units of analysis. The exposure of interest was neigh- borhood poverty rate categorized as 40%. Neighborhood poverty rate is the percentage of residents with income below the federal poverty line. The primary end point was bloodstream infection occurring 48 hrs before critical care initiation to 48 hrs after. Associations between neighborhood poverty rate and bloodstream infection were estimated by logistic regression models. Adjusted odds ratios were estimated by multi- variable logistic regression models. Results: Two thousand four-hundred thirty-five patients had bloodstream infections. Neighborhood poverty rate was a strong predictor of risk of bloodstream infection, with a significant risk gradient across neighborhood poverty rate quintiles. After multi- variable analysis, neighborhood poverty rate in the highest quin- tiles (20%-40% and >40%) were associated with a 26% and 49% increase in bloodstream infection risk, respectively, relative to pa- tients with neighborhood poverty rate of

Theories make varying predictions regarding the functional form of the relationship between neighborhood poverty and crime rates, ranging from a diminishing positive effect, to a linear positive effect, to an exponentially increasing or even threshold effect. Nonetheless, surprisingly little empirical evidence exists testing this functional form. The present study estimates the functional form of the relationship between poverty and various types of serious crime in a sample of census tracts for 25 cities, and finds that a diminishing positive effect most appropriately characterizes this relationship whether estimating the models nonparametrically or parametrically. Only for the crime of murder is there some evidence of an accelerating effect, although this occurs in the range of 20 to 40% in poverty, with a leveling effect on crime beyond this point of very high poverty. Thus, there is no evidence here in support of the postulate of scholars extending William Julius Wilson’s insight that neighborhoods with very high levels of poverty will experience an exponentially higher rate of crime compared to other neighborhoods.

Poverty is associated with increased risk of chronic illness but its contribution to critical care outcome is not well defined.We performed a multicenter observational study of 38,917 patients, aged ≥ 18 years, who received critical care between 1997 and 2007. The patients were treated in two academic medical centers in Boston, Massachusetts. Data sources included 1990 US census and hospital administrative data. The exposure of interest was neighborhood poverty rate, categorized as5%, 5% to 10%, 10% to 20%, 20% to 40% and40%. Neighborhood poverty rate is the percentage of residents below the federal poverty line. Census tracts were used as the geographic units of analysis. Logistic regression examined death by days 30, 90, and 365 post-critical care initiation and in-hospital mortality. Adjusted ORs were estimated by multivariable logistic regression models. Sensitivity analysis was performed for 1-year postdischarge mortality among patients discharged to home.Following multivariable adjustment, neighborhood poverty rate was not associated with all-cause 30-day mortality: 5% to 10% OR, 1.05 (95% CI, 0.98-1.14; P = .2); 10% to 20% OR, 0.96 (95% CI, 0.87-1.06; P = .5); 20% to 40% OR, 1.08 (95% CI, 0.96-1.22; P = .2);40% OR, 1.20 (95% CI, 0.90-1.60; P = .2); referent in each is5%. Similar nonsignificant associations were noted at 90-day and 365-day mortality post-critical care initiation and in-hospital mortality. Among patients discharged to home, neighborhood poverty rate was not associated with 1-year-postdischarge mortality.Our study suggests that there is no relationship between the neighborhood poverty rate and mortality up to 1 year following critical care at academic medical centers.

This study examines how the neighborhood environments experienced over multiple generations of a family influence children’s cognitive ability. Building on recent research showing strong continuity in neighborhood environments across generations of family members, we argue for a revised perspective on “neighborhood effects” that considers the ways in which the neighborhood environment in one generation may have a lingering impact on the next generation. To specify such multigenerational effects is not simply a theoretical problem, but poses considerable methodological challenges. Instead of traditional regression techniques that may obscure multigenerational effects of neighborhood disadvantage, we utilize newly developed methods designed to generate unbiased treatment effects when treatments and confounders vary over time. The results confirm a powerful link between neighborhoods and cognitive ability that extends across generations. Being raised in a high-poverty neighborhood in one generation has a substantial negative effect on child cognitive ability in the next generation. A family’s exposure to neighborhood poverty across two consecutive generations reduces child cognitive ability by more than half a standard deviation. A formal sensitivity analysis suggests that results are robust to unobserved selection bias.

This article provides a comprehensive review of studies conducted over the past decade on the effects of neighborhood and poverty on adolescent normative and nonnormative development. Our review includes a summary of studies examining the associations between neighborhood poverty and adolescent identity development followed by a review of studies addressing both direct and indirect linking among neighborhood poverty to academic achievement as well as internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Available neighborhood studies that examined physical health disparities, as well as genetic and environmental influences on adolescent development, were also included. Within each section we summarize findings that address the direct and indirect effects of neighborhood poverty. We conclude with promising strategies for future research, including recommendations for addressing theoretical and methodological issues that continue to plague this field of research.

This paper develops an analysis of human capital development that explores the relationships between information sharing and human capital efficiency in poor neighborhoods. In deriving the results, a relative connectivity (gamma) index, borrowed from the geography literature, is integrated into a model of neighborhood human capital growth. It is argued in this paper that increases in the sharing efficiency of economic information among individuals in a given neighborhood may have positive impacts on neighborhood human capital efficiency rates. These positive impacts on neighborhood human capital efficiency may likewise help to reduce the poverty rate in that neighborhood. The results established in this paper indicate that not only is the sharing of economic information in urban neighborhoods important for neighborhood human capital development but also that neighborhood income sharing, the sharing of neighborhood social capital, and the diversity of neighborhood social capital may all have a beneficial influence on both the human capital efficiency rate and the rates of neighborhood poverty.

article i nfo The present study used a person-centered approach to examine resilience in parenting among a sample of young mothers (under age 21 at childbirth). Resilient functioning as a parent was defined as the lack of perpetration of child maltreatment (substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect) in the context of risk. Risk factors were assessed at multiple levels, including family (e.g., negative childhood histories in family of origin) and ecological (e.g., neighborhood poverty, mother's financial stress) levels. Analyses revealed a group of mothers who demonstrated resilience in parenting despite a context of substantial risks from their childhood histories (e.g., negative family relationships) and current ecologies (e.g., economic and neighborhood conditions). Mothers in the resilient group were less likely to a) live with their families of origin, and b) to rely on their own mothers as sources of emotional or caregiving support. Data also indicated that young mothers' resilient functioning as parents was associated with higher rates of depressive symptoms among these mothers, perhaps suggesting a "cost" or limit to resilient parenting functioning in young mothers. Results are discussed in a resilience framework.

This paper develops a model of crime analyzing how such behavior is associated with individual and neighborhood poverty. The model shows that even under relatively minimal assumptions, a connection between individual poverty and both property and violent crimes will arise, and moreover, “neighborhood” effects can develop, but will differ substantially in nature across crime types. A key implication is that greater economic segregation in a city should have no effect or a negative effect on property crime, but a positive effect on violent crime. Using IV methods, I show this implication to be consistent with the empirical evidence.

BACKGROUND. Prior work has demonstrated how neighborhood poverty and racial composition impact racial disparities in access to the deceased donor kidney transplant waitlist, both nationally and regionally. We examined the association between neighborhood characteristics and racial disparities in time to transplant waitlist in Chicago, a diverse city with continued neighborhood segregation. METHODS. Using data from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) and the US Census, we investigated time from dialysis initiation to kidney transplant waitlisting for African American and white patients in Chicago using cause-specific proportional hazards analyses, adjusting for individual socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, as well as neighborhood poverty and racial composition. RESULTS. In Chicago, African Americans are significantly less likely than whites to appear on the renal transplant waitlist (HR 0.73, p

Suburban areas have become more diverse and stratified in the United States, with a particularly striking increase in poverty, challenging theories that conceptualize poverty predominantly as a central city phenomenon. Little scholarly work has examined suburban poverty, however, and the small existing literature focuses primarily on inner–ring suburbs in the Northeast and Midwest and relies too much on the concentric zone model of metropolitan development. We use Census 2000 summary data to examine the prevalence and form, characteristics, and determinants of suburban poverty at the neighborhood and metropolitan levels across the entire country. We draw on more sophisticated ecological and place stratification perspectives and argue that suburban poverty manifests in more varied forms than the typical model and diverges in crucial respects from central city poverty. Our results identify a particularly distinctive racial profile for suburban poverty, associated especially with Hispanic residential location, with implications for trends in racial segregation as well.

This study explores mediating medical risk factors in the association between racial residential segregation (i.e., racial 'black' isolation) and low birthweight in New York City, adjusting for maternal and infant risk factors and neighborhood poverty. This race-specific cross-sectional multilevel study found that as racial isolation increased in neighborhoods, the odds of having a low birthweight infant also increased for African-American and White women living in these areas. Medical conditions that mediated the racial isolation and low birthweight relationship included chronic hypertension and pregnancy-related hypertension for African-American women and chronic hypertension and lung disease for White women. Although this study was limited by the quality of the birth certificate data, it does provide exploratory pathways by which medical risks and their sequelae are linked to neighborhood environments and reproductive vulnerability.

How does neighborhood poverty affect the poor's ability to access resources such as health care and job information? Most studies have focused on individuals or neighborhoods; we focus on organizations - specifically, whether organizations are less connected if located in poor neighborhoods. Our case study is childcare centers. We ask whether centers' organizational ties provide parents access to important resources, and whether neighborhood poverty affects this capacity. Based on qualitative fieldwork in 23 New York City centers, we develop hypotheses about this process. We test them on a representative sample of 293 centers. Findings uncover that centers provide important resource-access through their ties and that neighborhood poverty does not undermine this capacity. We suggest that organizational ties may help explain the inconsistent results of the neighborhood effects literature.

Despite much scholarly attention to “neighborhood effects” on children, no study to date has measured the cumulative exposure of children to neighborhood poverty and affluence. In this article, I estimate racial and ethnic inequality in the amount of time children can expect to live in poor and nonpoor neighborhoods throughout childhood. At rates prevailing in the early- to mid-1990s, the average black child can expect to spend about 50 percent of her first 18 years in neighborhoods with poverty rates in excess of 20 percent. The corresponding figures for Latino and white children are about 40 percent and 5 percent, respectively. I find that black/white differences in childhood exposure to neighborhood poverty are largely accounted for by differences in the probability of being born into a poor neighborhood, and to a lesser degree by differences in rates of upward and downward neighborhood mobility during childhood. Finally, cross-period analyses indicate that white children's share of childhood in the most affluent neighborhood type increased steadily beginning in the late 1980s and that black children's exposure to the poorest neighborhood type increased rapidly in the mid-1980s and then declined sharply throughout the first half of the 1990s.

The cultural backgrounds and experiences of Mexican-origin mothers and fathers (including their Anglo and Mexican cultural orientations and their familism values) and their socioeconomic background (parental education, family income, neighborhood poverty rate) are linked to the nature of their involvement in adolescent peer relationships.

Limitations of extant research on neighborhood disadvantage and health include general reliance on point-in-time neighborhood measures and sensitivity to residential self-selection. Using data from the US Census and the 1995-2008 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we applied conventional methods and coarsened exact matching to assess how cardiometabolic health varies among those entering, exiting, or remaining in poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. Within the full sample (n = 11,767), we found significantly higher systolic and diastolic blood pressures among those who entered or consistently lived in poor neighborhoods relative to those who never lived in poor neighborhoods. Obesity was similarly more common among those who originated from poor neighborhoods than among those who originated from nonpoor neighborhoods. Having exited poor neighborhoods was associated with lower systolic blood pressure than was consistent residence in low-income communities. Among the matched sample (n = 9,727), results adjusted for confounders and residential self-selection revealed fewer significant contrasts. Compared with peers who had no neighborhood poverty exposure, those who consistently lived in poor neighborhoods had 46% and 52% higher odds of being obese or hypertensive, respectively. Those who exited neighborhood poverty had significantly higher diastolic blood pressures than those who had never lived in poor neighborhoods. These findings underscore the importance of past as well as current residential circumstances for cardiometabolic health.

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Studies of housing mobility and neighborhood effects on health often treat neighborhoods as if they were isolated islands. This paper argues that conceptualizing neighborhoods as part of the wider spatial context within which they are embedded may be key in advancing our understanding of the role of local context in the life of urban dwellers. Analyses are based on mental health and neighborhood context measurements taken on over 3000 low-income families who participated in the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program (MTO), a large field experiment in five major U.S. cities. Results from analyses of two survey waves combined with Census data at different geographic scales indicate that assignment to MTO's experimental condition of neighborhood poverty

CONTEXT Prior research suggests that mammography declined from 2000 to 2005 and that socioeconomic disparities remained wide. OBJECTIVE To assess national trends and disparities in mammography among commercially insured women from 2001 to 2010. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS This study used a longitudinal time series design to examine mammography rates among 5.4 million US women aged 40 to 64 years from 2001 to 2010. Adjusted annual rates stratified by age group (40-49 years/50-64 years) and neighborhood-level socioeconomic characteristics including poverty and race/ethnicity were plotted. Mammography disparities were defined as the absolute percentage difference in adjusted screening rates between population subgroups in a given year. Trends in 2001-2010 screening rates and socioeconomic disparities were fitted as annual percentage changes (APCs) using join point analysis, which can determine changes in trends. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Annual and biennial mammogram. RESULTS Adjusted annual mammography rates among women aged 40 to 49 years increased from 38.5% to 45.5% (0.78% APC, P < .001) over the decade. Among women aged 50 to 64 years, 2001-2004 rates decreased from 49.7% to 47.4% (-0.78% APC, P = .035) and then increased to 51.8% by 2010 (APC of 0.80%, P < .001). Women aged 40 to 49 years had an unchanged high-low neighborhood poverty screening disparity of 11.0% over the decade (APC -0.05%, P = .508). The estimated white-black disparity decreased from 9.6% to 7.7% from 2001 to 2010 (-0.21% APC, P = .042). The white-Hispanic disparity decreased from 9.6% to 6.2% between 2001 and 2003 (APC -1.69%, P = .143) and then to 5.3% by 2010 (APC -0.14%, P = .343). Among women aged 50 to 64 years, estimated high-low poverty and white-black disparities declined (11.0%-9.5% [-0.16% APC, P = .026] and 8.6%-6.3% [-0.26% APC, P = .008], respectively) while the white-Hispanic disparity decreased from 14.9% to 5.4% between 2001 and 2003 (-4.77% APC, P = .023) and was 6.5% by 2010. CONCLUSIONS Mammography increased among women aged 40 to 49 years from 2001 to 2010 and after 2004 among women aged 50 to 64 years. Women from black and Hispanic neighborhoods experienced reduced disparities, but disparities by poverty level changed little.

Objectives To compare availability of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), tobacco products, and electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in pharmacies in St. Louis, MO. Design Cross-sectional study, on-site store audits of 322 pharmacies. Setting St. Louis, MO. Participants 242 eligible community pharmacies located in the study area. Intervention Pharmacies were visited by trained research assistants who conducted a 5- to 10-minute store audit using a paper-based data collection tool. Main outcome measures Availability, accessibility, and pricing of NRT as a function of neighborhood poverty rate and proportion of black residents as well as availability of tobacco products and e-cigarettes. Results NRT availability decreased as neighborhood poverty rate increased ( P = 0.02). Availability without pharmacy personnel assistance also decreased with increasing poverty rate (r = −0.19; 95% CI=−0.06, −0.31) and higher percentage of black residents (r = −0.18; 95% CI=−0.06, −0.31). Prices were lower in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates ( P = 0.02) and a higher percentage of black residents ( P = 0.03). E-cigarettes were available in 43% of pharmacies, and their availability and price did not differ by poverty rate or percentage of black residents. Conclusion Low access to NRT might perpetuate smoking disparities in disadvantaged and racially diverse neighborhoods. Study data support policies to ensure equal NRT access to reduce disparities.

Marriage and parenthood are associated with weight gain and residential mobility. Little is known about how obesity-relevant environmental contexts differ according to family structure. We estimated trajectories of neighborhood poverty, population density, and density of fast food restaurants, supermarkets, and commercial and public physical activity facilities for adults from a biracial cohort (CARDIA, n=4,174, aged 25–50) over 13 years (1992–93 through 2005–06) using latent growth curve analysis. We estimated associations of marriage, parenthood, and race with the observed neighborhood trajectories. Married participants tended to live in neighborhoods with lower poverty, population density, and availability of all types of food and physical activity amenities. Parenthood was similarly but less consistently related to neighborhood characteristics. Marriage and parenthood were more strongly related to neighborhood trajectories in whites (versus blacks), who, in prior studies, exhibit weaker associations between neighborhood characteristics and health. Greater understanding of how interactive family and neighborhood environments contribute to healthy living is needed.

The relationship between residential segregation and overweight/obesity among African-American adults remains unclear. Elucidating that relationship is relevant to efforts to prevent and to reduce racial disparities in obesity. This article provides a critical review of the 11 empirical studies of segregation and overweight/obesity among African-American adults. Results revealed that most studies did not use a valid measure of segregation, many did not use a valid measure of overweight/obesity, and many did not control for neighborhood poverty. Only four (36% of the) studies used valid measures of both segregation and overweight/obesity and also controlled for area-poverty. Those four studies suggest that segregation contributes to overweight and obesity among African-American adults, but that conclusion cannot be drawn with any certainty in light of the considerable methodological problems in this area of research. Suggestions for improving research on this topic are provided.

Researchers suspect that some of the disparities that exist in such outcomes as health, employment, and education might be attributable to inequality of opportunity as determined by neighborhood environments. We study census data to identify neighborhood characteristics in addition to poverty that might help to explain these disparities. We focus on the Moving to Opportunity housing-relocation experiment and show that because program participants typically moved from one predominately black neighborhood to another, their new low-poverty neighborhoods may have provided little to no change in neighborhood quality. These circumstances are helpful in understanding how results from the Moving to Opportunity program should inform views of neighborhood effects.

Despite overall declines in infant mortality over the past few decades, racial disparities between blacks and whites have persisted in the United States. This article considers the argument that racial differences in infant mortality are partially the result of the disproportionate concentration of blacks within extremely poor neighborhoods relative to whites. Using race-specific measures of neighborhood-level poverty, combined with metropolitan-wide measures of infant mortality, it was determined that trends in infant mortality for both blacks and whites reflect the impact of an intergenerational effect associated with prolonged exposure to extremely poor neighborhoods. Racial disparities in infant mortality in the early 1980s can be accounted for by black – white differences in neighborhood poverty exposure. Results suggest, however, that black infant mortality during the early 1990s was much more strongly influenced by high-risk natality behaviors among black women than by economic status or n...

Objective. This study explores the wide variation in homicide rates among extremely poor neighborhoods. Methods. Using cross-sectional Census tract data for New York City (N= 2,042), the present analysis employs robust regression techniques to estimate the relationship between community resource deprivation and homicide for a subsample of 227 neighborhoods with poverty rates 40 percent and greater. Results. The main finding is that even at extreme levels of neighborhood poverty, variation in disadvantage is positively associated with variation in homicide rates. Moreover, the disadvantage-homicide relationship appears especially strong in extremely poor areas (and in predominately African-American neighborhoods). Conclusion. Consistent with W. J. Wilson's perspective on inner-city disadvantage, the results imply that reducing the concentration of poverty will reduce overall homicide rates.

Neighborhood environments affect the long-term labor market success of America’s urban youth. Urban poverty grew more spatially concentrated during the 1970s and 1980s as industrial economies drama...

This article investigates the causal effects of neighborhood on high school dropping out and teenage pregnancy within a counterfactual framework. It shows that when two groups of children, identical at age 10 on observed factors, experience different neighborhoods during adolescence, those in high‐poverty neighborhoods are more likely to drop out of high school and have a teenage pregnancy than those in low‐poverty neighborhoods. Causal inferences from such associations have been plagued by the possibility of selection bias. Using a new method for sensitivity analysis, these effects are shown to be robust to selection bias. Unobserved factors would have to be unreasonably strong to account for the associations between neighborhood and the outcomes.

Studies on life in poor urban neighborhoods suggest the importance of kin and non-kin ties for support. Research also notes the dearth of certain ties that are important to locate economic and social resources. This research evaluates the determinants of certain types of social resources for residents in poor urban neighborhoods. Specifically, I consider the relationship between five types of neighborhood ties for residents--religious, kin, friendship, neighbor, and informal jobs--as well as race/ethnicity, and neighborhood poverty and social resources. Using the Urban Poverty & Family Life Survey and OLS and logistic regression analyses, results show religious and friendship ties are important predictors of individual social resources and support. Also, neighborhood poverty is insignificant in most of the analyses and when it is important, residents in more impoverished areas are more likely to seek out social resources than their counterparts in non-poor and moderately poor areas. These findings support...

In this paper, we addressed three questions. First, how transient are poorneighborhoods? Second, is the distribution of different racial and ethnicgroups affected unequally by changes in the economic status of neighborhoods?Third, what is the relative importance of the neighborhood life cycle,invasion-succession and spatial effect models in explaining the transitionof poor neighborhoods? Based on 1986 and 1991 Canadian census data,we found that the poverty rates of a substantial percentage of neighborhoodschanged during the five years. We also found a consistent pattern that earlyimmigrant groups (i.e., British, Western, and Northern Europeans) have thehighest percentage of members living in non-poor neighborhoods. At the otherend of the continuum, two visible minority groups, blacks and East and SoutheastAsians, have the highest percentage of members living in very poor neighborhoods.In addition, as suggested by the invasion-succession model, the proportion of visibleminorities in neighborhoods strongly affects the neighborhood poverty levels.Implications of the findings are discussed.

This paper presents a comparative static analysis using a conceptual model of the social benefits and costs associated with alternative spatial distributions of the poor. This analysis demonstrates that the necessary and sufficient conditions for justifying deconcentration of the poor on the grounds of increasing net social benefits are much more stringent than is commonly believed, fundamentally involving particular sorts of non-linear relationships between neighborhood poverty rates and the propensity of neighboring individuals to engage in problem behaviors and to earn less. The paper then conducts a meta-analysis of the limited empirical evidence available. The weight of the evidence implies that net social benefits would be improved if neighborhoods with greater than about 15% poverty rates were replaced with (an appropriately larger number) of neighborhoods having less than 15% poverty rates. However, net social benefits would be smaller if neighborhoods with greater than about 40% poverty rates were replaced with (an appropriately larger number) of neighborhoods having between about 15–40% poverty rates.

Criminal opportunity theory suggests that community economic deprivation has two countervailing effects on property crime: it causes strain and disorganization which may encourage some individuals to offend, but it also simultaneously lessens opportunities to engage in property crime by reducing the supply of worthwhile targets in an area. The present study examines the relationship between economic deprivation and rates of burglary and motor vehicle theft for census tracts in two large American cities (Austin and Seattle). Regression analyses support the opportunity saturation hypothesis derived from criminal opportunity theory. This hypothesis suggests that the relationship between levels of deprivation and property crime is curvilinear where the positive effect of deprivation on property crime is stronger at low levels of neighborhood poverty than it is at high levels. Research and policy implications are discussed.

Background: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes vary across communities. While these outcomes are known to be largely dependent on initiation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the effect of individual and neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics on CPR initiation is less clear. We

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to determine whether living in a neighborhood in which poverty levels increase across adolescence is associated with heightened levels of allostatic load (AL), a biological composite reflecting cardiometabolic risk. The researchers also sought to determine whether receipt of emotional support could ameliorate the effects of increases in neighborhood poverty on AL. METHODS: Neighborhood concentrations of poverty were obtained from the Census Bureau for 420 African American youth living in rural Georgia when they were 11 and 19 years of age. AL was measured at age 19 by using established protocols for children and adolescents. When youth were 18, caregivers reported parental emotional support and youth assessed receipt of peer and mentor emotional support. Covariates included family poverty status at ages 11 and 19, family financial stress, parental employment status, youth stress, and youths’ unhealthful behaviors. RESULTS: Youth who lived in neighborhoods in which poverty levels increased from ages 11 to 19 evinced the highest levels of AL even after accounting for the individual-level covariates. The association of increasing neighborhood poverty across adolescence with AL was not significant for youth who received high emotional support. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to show an association between AL and residence in a neighborhood that increases in poverty. It also highlights the benefits of supportive relationships in ameliorating this association.

The interpretation of estimates from Moving to Opportunity (MTO) as neighborhood effects has created significant controversy among social scientists. This paper presents a framework that clarifies the interpretation of results from the MTO housing mobility experiment. The paper defines several neighborhood treatments and estimates their Local Average Treatment Effects (LATEs) using assigned treatment in MTO as an instrumental variable. This framework clarifies that while parameters estimated in the literature do not suffer from selection bias, selection into treatment is an inescapable issue if one seeks to learn about neighborhood effects from MTO. The LATE parameters estimated in this paper are neighborhood effects for the subgroup of MTO families who are compliers with respect to the defined treatment. In contrast, the Treatment-on-the-Treated (TOT) parameters reported in the literature are program effects. Since the subgroup of compliers for various neighborhood treatments can be considerably smaller than the subgroup induced to move by MTO, preliminary estimates indicate that LATE neighborhood effects tend to be much larger than the TOT program effects from MTO. This re-interpretation of the MTO data suggests two important conclusions related to the current understanding of neighborhood effects and programs. First, if alternative housing mobility programs were designed to induce moves to neighborhoods with characteristics other than low poverty, it is entirely feasible that such programs might induce larger effects than MTO. Second, initial LATE estimates appear to reconcile the evidence from MTO with prevailing theories of neighborhood effects.

Children from affluent schools know more, stay in school longer, and end up with better jobs than children from schools that enroll mostly poor children. Children who live in affluent neighborhoods also get into less trouble with the law and have fewer illegitimate children than children who live in poor neighborhoods.

Recent research suggests that racial and poverty concentrations in urban neighborhoods influence how minorities look for and find jobs. In this study, we use data from the Multi-City Survey of Urban Inequality to examine this hypothesis, focusing on the use and return to various modes of job matching among blacks and Latinos in different residential contexts. Results show that while Latinos are generally more likely than blacks to acquire jobs through personal contacts, this racial difference shrinks considerably in very poor, coethnic neighborhoods (i.e., ghettos and barrios). However, results also indicate that within these respective neighborhood contexts, Latinos are significantly more likely than blacks to use neighbors and eventual coworkers to acquire jobs; whereas blacks are more likely to use residential and organizational “outsiders.” We speculate that this qualitative difference in the type of contacts used in barrios, as opposed to ghettos, affects the extent to which individual success with informal job matching contributes to the development of a collective resource that can be used by other job seekers in the neighborhood.

This paper examines racial differences in participation in voluntary associations. It extends past research by accounting for the influence of neighborhood poverty on participation. Using unique data from the 1993–94 Los Angeles Survey of Urban Inequality (LASUI), the analysis reveals that neighborhood poverty influences the number of associations to which individuals belong, even when considering differences in personal and other residential characteristics. Moreover, once the negative influence of neighborhood poverty is taken into account, blacks participate in more voluntary associations than do whites and other groups, while Asians participate the least. Evidence supports the ethnic community theory of blacks' greater participation, as blacks living in black communities participate in more organizations, particularly in ones that are political, than blacks who do not.