Exceptions to the rule: Healthy deprived areas and unhealthy wealthy areas

Deprived yet healthy: Neighbourhood-level resilience in New Zealand

“…In our research, resilient places also had high levels of shortterm residents. While this is consistent with other resilience research (van Hooijonk et al, 2007), there is the potential for artificially low mortality rates in these neighbourhoods, as residents reside in the area for shorter lengths of time and are thus less likely to die while living there.…”

“…One study identified significantly lower age-specific mortality rates in places with persistent economic disadvantage, relative to places with similarly deprived histories (Tunstall, Mitchell, Gibbs, Platt, & Dorling, 2007). Other studies have identified associated characteristics of resilient neighbourhoods such as low percentages of non-western immigrants, low percentages of elderly people (van Hooijonk, Droomers, van Loon, van der Lucht, & Kunst, 2007), low community turnover, low percentages of single-parent households (Wandersman & Nation, 1998), attracting new residents (Mitchell, Gibbs, Tunstall, Platt, & Dorling, 2009) and not being located in major urban fringe (Doran, Drever, & Whitehead, 2006). A weakness of these studies was the large population size of the area units investigated, with one study having as many as one million people per unit and others having an average of 90,000 people.…”

Are area-level and individual-level socioeconomic factors associated with self-rated health in adult urban citizens? Evidence from Slovak and Dutch cities

“…This requires data about even lower units than the LAU2-level for proper detection of neighbourhood variances. Selection of other relevant SE characteristics of areas, such as vandalism or crime in an area, 27 will also help local policy makers make better adjustment of policies on social health determinants.…”

“…Regarding the Netherlands, the effect of areas on health have been studied much more intensively. 2,3,7,10,15,26,27 Our study examined the impact of area-level and individual-level SE factors on the prevalence of poor self-rated health (SRH) among urban citizens in Slovakia and in the Netherlands. Our aim was to assess whether the prevalence in poor SRH was higher in deprived areas, whether this can be explained by individual SE status (SES) and whether this differed between Slovakia and the Netherlands per age group.…”

Place, space, and health inequalities

“…Studies have, for example, shown that health inequalities are narrower in areas with ready access to urban green spaces, and that the benefits of contact with nature appear stronger for more deprived populations than for more affluent (Mitchell and Popham 2008). Focusing on geographical research, a larger number of studies has looked for 'resilient' areas, defined as having relatively good health given a high level of socioeconomic deprivation (Cairns et al 2012;Mitchell et al 2009;Pearson et al 2013;Tunstall et al 2007;van Hooijdonk et al 2007). These studies have found geographically defined populations which face long-term socioeconomic deprivation, yet appear to have significantly better health outcomes than their economic or environmental peers.…”