Abstract
Research into health disparities has long recognized the importance of residential mobility as a crucial factor in determining health outcomes. However, a lack of connectivity between the health and mobility literatures has led to a stagnation of theory and application on the health side, which lacks the detail and temporal perspectives now seen as critical to understanding residential mobility decisions. Through a critical re-think of mobility processes with respect to health outcomes and an exploitation of longitudinal analytical techniques, we argue that health geographers have the potential to better understand and identify the relationship that residential mobility has with health.
Highlights
It has long been hypothesized that there are important and substantial links between an individual’s residential mobility biography and their health outcomes (Bentham, 1988; Boyle et al, 1999, 2002; Findley, 1988; Strachan et al, 1995)
Population level migration approaches have been important for determining broad patterns in mobility and health but, as with all studies of aggregated data, they do not permit inferences to be made at the individual level; to do so risks the ecological fallacy (Robinson, 1950; Subramanian et al, 2009)
Whilst work that identifies the potential associations between factors is crucial, the advent of better individual level data, improvements in modelling approaches, and developments in theory have moved disciplines forward so that the ‘Holy Grail’ is to develop a better understanding of the complex causal relationships between social exposures and outcomes
Summary
It has long been hypothesized that there are important and substantial links between an individual’s residential mobility biography (hereafter ‘mobility’) and their health outcomes (Bentham, 1988; Boyle et al, 1999, 2002; Findley, 1988; Strachan et al, 1995). Population level migration approaches have been important for determining broad patterns in mobility and health but, as with all studies of aggregated data, they do not permit inferences to be made at the individual level; to do so risks the ecological fallacy (Robinson, 1950; Subramanian et al, 2009) As such, they neglect much of the exploration and drilling down into the detail and complexity of patterns between mobility and health outcomes. Whilst work that identifies the potential associations between factors is crucial, the advent of better individual level data, improvements in modelling approaches, and developments in (quantitative) theory have moved disciplines forward so that the ‘Holy Grail’ is to develop a better understanding of the complex causal relationships between social exposures and outcomes. Having critically examined the literature, we draw upon theoretical and methodological advancements from mobility and neighbourhood effects work to develop a framework through which health focused mobility research can advance in order to obtain more robust, appropriately situated results and better inform scientific knowledge on the health impacts of mobility
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