Context or composition: How does neighbourhood deprivation impact upon adolescent smoking behaviour?

Abstract

Neighbourhood effects studies have demonstrated an association between area deprivation and smoking behaviour whereby people living in deprived neighbourhoods are more likely to smoke than those in non-deprived neighbourhoods. This evidence though is based largely upon data that ignores long term exposures to neighbourhood contexts and is confounded by neighbourhood selection bias. In this study, we investigate the temporal ordering of exposure to neighbourhood deprivation throughout childhood and whether associations between neighbourhood deprivation and cigarette smoking are due to compositional or contextual neighbourhood effects. Data come from a UK cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We use longitudinal measures of neighbourhood deprivation and self-reported smoking behaviour for 2744 children to examine the influence of neighbourhood deprivation on smoking status and smoking heaviness at age 17. Our results demonstrate that children who are born into and grow up in deprived neighbourhoods are up to twice as likely to be smokers at age 17 than those in non-deprived neighbourhoods. These associations are largely due to family socioeconomic position and the intergenerational transmission of smoking behaviour from parents to children; compositional rather than direct contextual ‘neighbourhood effects’. Our findings highlight the importance of considering longitudinal exposure to neighbourhood deprivation over cross sectional exposure. In conclusion, we find that it is the family rather than the neighbourhood into which a child is born that determines their smoking behaviour.

How do perceived and objective measures of neighbourhood disadvantage vary over time? Results from a prospective-longitudinal study in the UK with implications for longitudinal research on neighbourhood effects on health

“…[5][6][7] The appropriateness of using different measures of economic or relational neighbourhood disadvantages (e.g., neighbourhood deprivation or social cohesion) as proxies for each other, or as mediators in different neighbourhood mechanisms, thus depends on the time-point (in cross-sectional studies) or period of life course (in longitudinal studies) under study and the constructs of interest. Our study further extends prior neighbourhood trajectory analyses, [54,55] which…”

“…In addition, a previous study of ALSPAC data which used the 2004 Indices of Multiple Deprivation identified the same four trajectory groups, demonstrating some robustness in our findings. [55] We did not have access to participants' continuous deprivation scores (e.g., for the income or employment domains), which would have allowed us to analyze greater heterogenity and may have partly driven some of the observed divergence with the perceived measures. We favoured an analysis of neighbourhood deprivation exposure as a dichotomized rather than quintiled variable to conceptualize a threshold of more severe neighbourhood deprivation.…”

The impact of the point-of-sale tobacco display ban on young people in Scotland: before-and-after study

“…This was also found in a study using another neighbourhood characteristic, deprivation. 112 Taken together, these findings suggest that, although a direct effect of legislation can be immediate, indirect effects through social networks can continue the impact on adolescent tobacco and smoking awareness for years after, highlighting the need to continue to emphasise reducing parental smoking in tobacco control policy. In conclusion, the POS ban may have disrupted the link between tobacco retailer density and brand awareness and perceived smoking prevalence.…”

The Effect of Parental Involvement and Socioeconomic Status on Junior School Students’ Academic Achievement and School Behavior in China

“… Coleman (1988) considered that a family with high SES can provide a better living environment and more educational resources for their child or children. For example, with a longitudinal data of 2744 adolescents, Morris et al (2018) found that children from low SES families tended to live in low SES neighborhoods, causing a higher tendency for them to take up smoking. With the Independent Freshman Admission administrative data from an elite university (i.e., Peking University in China), Liu et al (2014) found that adolescents in high SES families had more chances to pass the selection process to enter these universities.…”