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

Abstract

Background Theories of health outcomes often hypothesize that living in more socially and economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods will lead to worse health. Multiple measures of neighbourhood disadvantage are available to researchers, which may serve as better or worse proxies for each other across time. To inform longitudinal study design and interpretation we investigated how perceived and objective measures of neighbourhood disadvantage vary over time and the factors underlying this variation. Methods Data were from 8,918 mothers with at least three time-points of neighbourhood data in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children in the UK. We analyzed measures of objective (Indices of Multiple Deprivation) and perceived (neighbourhood quality, social cohesion, and stress) exposure to neighbourhood disadvantage at 10 time-points over 18 years. We used group-based trajectory modelling to determine the overlap in participants' trajectories on the different measures and evaluated the baseline factors associated with different perceived trajectories over time. Results There was evidence of heterogeneity in both perceived and objective measures of neighbourhood disadvantage over time (e.g., on the objective measure, 5% of participants moved to more deprived neighbourhoods, 11% moved to less deprived neighbourhoods, 20% consistently lived in deprived neighbourhoods, and 64% consistently lived in non-deprived neighbourhoods). Perceived social cohesion showed the weakest relationship with exposure

Neighborhood Physical and Social Environments and Social Inequalities in Health in Older Adolescents and Young Adults: A Scoping Review

“…Subjective and objective measures of health outcomes and environmental exposure are worth considering separately, since they often assess different, yet overlapping, concepts, and they each have advantages and limitations. Subjective and objective environmental measures can also point toward distinct intervention and policy responses [ 99 , 100 ]. Subjective measures included those that were self-reported by participants or their parents (e.g., self-reported mental health or perceived neighborhood safety), while objective measures were based on diagnostic data or administrative and third-party data usually handled within geographic information systems (GIS) (e.g., greenspace coverage).…”

Impact of subjective and objective neighbourhood characteristics and individual socioeconomic position on allostatic load: A cross-sectional analysis of an all-age UK household panel study

“…Similarly to previous studies (Zhang et al, 2019), we found that objective measures of neighbourhoods were somewhat more strongly associated with higher levels of stress than subjective measures. Yakubovich et al (2020) highlight that ecological measures should not be inferred as a definitive marker that neighbourhood characteristics Fig. 1.…”

“…Worsening neighbourhood factors, including crime and disorder, social environment, and physical environmental factors, have also been associated with increased anxiety and depression scores (Olsen et al, 2017). Subjective neighbourhood environment measures are based on residents' perceptions and assessment of neighbourhood features (Zhang et al, 2019) and include, for example, individual assessments of neighbourhood quality, neighbourhood stress, safety, and social cohesion (Yakubovich et al, 2020). Objective neighbourhood environment measures may be derived from secondary or spatial datasets to provide neighbourhood context (Zhang et al, 2019), and typically include deprivation and crime statistics.…”

“…Objective and subjective neighbourhood characteristics have been shown to have diverse effects on health outcomes, both positive and negative (Zhang et al, 2019) and with varying effect sizes (Godhwani et al, 2019). For example, objective neighbourhood deprivation measures have been shown to have stronger and more consistent associations with health outcomes than those with subjective measures (Godhwani et al, 2019;Gong et al, 2016), which accumulate over the life course (Jivraj et al, 2020;Yakubovich et al, 2020). It is therefore important to explore the differential effects of objective and subjective neighbourhood measures to better understand their health impacts whilst controlling for factors such as age, gender and individual socioeconomic position, which may modify these relationships (Schüle and Bolte, 2015).…”

Subjective and objective indicators of neighbourhood safety and physical activity among UK adolescents

“…Subjective measures are not simply proxies of objective measures or vice versa. It can be argued that objective measures of the neighbourhood do not capture experienti al or relational aspects which are often important for understanding relationships and mechanisms of neighbourhood effects on health (Yakubovich, Heron and Humphreys, 2020). Subjective measures of the neighbourhood environment reflect an individual’s experience of their surroundings and allow residents to report on the neighbourhood social context not possible with objective measures, although there may be limitations that have to do with how neighbourhood is defined (Corcoran et al ., 2018).…”