Associations of neighborhood socioeconomic and racial/ethnic characteristics with changes in survey-based neighborhood quality, 2000–2011

Abstract

We investigated the relationships between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics (socioeconomic status [SES], percentage of Black residents, and percentage of Hispanic residents) and survey-based measures of the social environment (social cohesion, safety) and the physical environment (healthy food environment, walking environment) in six sites from 2000 through 2011. Neighborhood environments were patterned by area SES and racial/ethnic composition, such that higher SES and lower percentage minority neighborhoods had better physical and social environments. Increasing disparities over time were observed for some neighborhood environments. Further research should explore the role of neighborhood environments in maintaining or increasing social disparities in health.

Association Between Living in Food Deserts and Cardiovascular Risk

“…Black neighborhoods have been reported to have more fast food restaurants, 56 fewer supermarkets, 57 fewer healthy options, lower levels of social cohesion and worse walking environments. 58 Our data shows that Blacks also formed a higher proportion of those with low income, a key driver of increased CVD risk.…”

Perceived neighborhood characteristics predict severity and emotional response to daily stressors

“…In addition, a longitudinal follow-up using the EMA approach, such as with a measurement burst design (Sliwinski, 2008), would assist in identifying a critical or sensitive temporal period when an individual is at risk for the occurrence of illness or disease after exposure to daily neighborhood stressors. Incorporating this approach into future studies will further support that context of an individual is relevant to their health (Freeman and Anderson, 2017; Kaiser et al, 2016; Smith and Easterlow, 2005), but also assist in identifying a period where modification of neighborhood characteristics could delay the incidence of disease.…”

“…Because of SES-related clustering of residency (Diez Roux and Mair, 2010; Geronimus et al, 2001) – in which individuals are more likely to live near others of similar SES – the role of neighborhood factors may have been confounded with SES in prior work. Indeed, neighborhoods vary in the socioeconomic composition of the residents (Kaiser et al, 2016; Diez Roux and Mair, 2010). Compared to communities with a large composition of high SES residents, communities with a large composition of low SES residents tend to have fewer beneficial (e.g., access to healthy foods, green spaces, and social organizations) and higher hazardous (e.g.…”

“…Compared to communities with a large composition of high SES residents, communities with a large composition of low SES residents tend to have fewer beneficial (e.g., access to healthy foods, green spaces, and social organizations) and higher hazardous (e.g. fast food restaurants, limited space for physical activity, and violence) environmental resources (Hughey et al, 2016; Kaiser et al, 2016). The Reserve Capacity Model (Gallo et al, 2005; Gallo and Matthews, 1999) proposes that lower SES results in worse health outcomes because of increased daily stressor exposure and limited reserve capacity – which includes interpersonal resources such as social support – to manage stressors.…”

“…Thus, stressors in daily life, particularly among minorities, may also be attributed to past and/or current discriminatory actions or policies (Gee and Payne-Sturges, 2004). Identifying neighborhood characteristics related to physical and mental health outcomes may improve our understanding of racial and socioeconomic health disparities (Kaiser et al, 2016; Smith and Easterlow, 2005).…”