The socio-spatial neighborhood estimation method: An approach to operationalizing the neighborhood concept

Neighborhood Hispanic composition and depressive symptoms among Mexican-descent residents of Texas City, Texas

“…Data collection has been described in detail in prior work (Cutchin et al, 2011). Eligible subjects were identified through a listing of all household units in 12-square mile area encompassing around 75% of the city’s population.…”

Effects of buffer size and shape on associations between the built environment and energy balance

“…While information on these geographies comes primarily from qualitative studies, sensitivity analyses estimating the impact of varying definitions of spatial contexts on findings are necessary (Diez Roux and Mair, 2010). Previous studies have examined this topic in other settings and amongst other populations (Jones et al, 2010, Cockings and Martin, 2005, Cutchin et al, 2011, Parenteau and Sawada, 2011, Santos et al, 2010); however, no prior analysis has approached this issue at a broad geographic scale in a cohort of adult women.…”

Understanding Residential Location Choices for Climate Change and Transportation Decision Making: Phase 2 Report

“…Moreover, the manifestation of neighborhood perceptions into individual-level attitudes has been well-noted as a challenging prospect for planners attempting to influence behavioral outcomes by campaigns to modify attitudes (McFadden 1974). In the end, any decision to define the abstract neighborhood concept by a set of physical, social, or some combination of these distinct dimensions must be established into a defensible and workable conceptualization that may be empirically measured (Cutchin et al 2011).…”

“…Neighborhood definitions, which are not rigorously tested, will lead to poor conceptualizations of neighborhoods that misinform statistical inferences (Cutchin, et al 2011) and limit the generalizability of results (Diez Roux 2001). A thorough operationalization of the concept will ultimately lead to an improved understanding of how various elements of the neighborhood effect residential location decisions and the behavior of those individuals living in the selected residence (Guo and Bhat 2007).…”

“…Although commonplace, conceptualizing neighborhoods with this spatial definition has been criticized for creating high levels of within-area variation (Gauvin, et al 2007) and insensitivity to perceptive neighborhood elements (Guo and Bhat 2007). However, these point may be in part resolved by the use of smaller statistical spatial units (e.g., census block groups), which may enhance within-area homogeneity (O'Campo 2003) and move closer to a representation approximating the scale of internal social relations (Cutchin, et al 2011). Additionally, the adoption of a census-related spatial definition has the theoretical benefit of a nested structure reflecting the multi-level nature of different neighborhood effects (Guo and Bhat 2007).…”