Neighborhood Quality Research Articles

Unraveling the complexity of human behavior and urbanization on community vulnerability to floods

Floods are among the costliest natural hazards and their consequences are expected to increase further in the future due to urbanization in flood-prone areas. It is essential that policymakers understand the factors governing the dynamics of urbanization to adopt proper disaster risk reduction techniques. Peoples’ relocation preferences and their perception of flood risk (collectively called human behavior) are among the most important factors that influence urbanization in flood-prone areas. Current studies focusing on flood risk assessment do not consider the effect of human behavior on urbanization and how it may change the nature of the risk. Moreover, flood mitigation policies are implemented without considering the role of human behavior and how the community will cope with measures such as buyout, land acquisition, and relocation that are often adopted to minimize development in flood-prone regions. Therefore, such policies may either be resisted by the community or result in severe socioeconomic consequences. In this study, we present a new Agent-Based Model (ABM) to investigate the complex interaction between human behavior and urbanization and its role in creating future communities vulnerable to flood events. We identify critical factors in the decisions of households to locate or relocate and adopt policies compatible with human behavior. The results show that when people are informed about the flood risk and proper incentives are provided, the demand for housing within 500-year floodplain may be reduced as much as 15% by 2040 for the case study considered. On the contrary, if people are not informed of the risk, 29% of the housing choices will reside in floodplains. The analyses also demonstrate that neighborhood quality—influenced by accessibility to highways, education facilities, the city center, water bodies, and green spaces, respectively—is the most influential factor in peoples’ decisions on where to locate. These results provide new insights that may be used to assist city planners and stakeholders in examining tradeoffs between costs and benefits of future land development in achieving sustainable and resilient cities.

KNN Loss and Deep KNN

The k Nearest Neighbor (KNN) algorithm has been widely applied in various supervised learning tasks due to its simplicity and effectiveness. However, the quality of KNN decision making is directly affected by the quality of the neighborhoods in the modeling space. Efforts have been made to map data to a better feature space either implicitly with kernel functions, or explicitly through learning linear or nonlinear transformations. However, all these methods use pre-determined distance or similarity functions, which may limit their learning capacity. In this paper, we present two loss functions, namely KNN Loss and Fuzzy KNN Loss, to quantify the quality of neighborhoods formed by KNN with respect to supervised learning, such that minimizing the loss function on the training data leads to maximizing KNN decision accuracy on the training data. We further present a deep learning strategy that is able to learn, by minimizing KNN loss, pairwise similarities of data that implicitly maps data to a feature space where the quality of KNN neighborhoods is optimized. Experimental results show that this deep learning strategy (denoted as Deep KNN) outperforms state-of-the-art supervised learning methods on multiple benchmark data sets.

Child, mother, and neighborhood characteristics and mothers’ use of corporal punishment: A longitudinal repeated measures analysis

This study aimed to investigate the child, mother, and neighborhood characteristics of mothers’ use of corporal punishment over time using a longitudinal repeated measures analysis. The sample consisted of 3,979 children from waves 2000 and 2002 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 who resided with their mothers. Hierarchical linear modeling results showed that younger age, race/ethnicity, and behavioral problems of the child significantly predicted the use of corporal punishment by mothers over time. Regarding mothers’ characteristics, we found that only poverty status was statistically significant, and for neighborhood characteristics, mothers’ ratings of neighborhood quality predicted their employment of corporal punishment. Hence, community programs and professionals should provide mothers—especially those struggling financially and living in unsafe neighborhoods—with alternatives to corporal punishment that are culturally sensitive, effective, and harmless.

The Effects of Parental and Sibling Incarceration: Evidence from Ohio

Every year, millions of Americans experience the incarceration of a family member. Using 30 years of administrative data from Ohio and exploiting differing incarceration propensities of randomly assigned judges, this paper provides the first quasi-experimental estimates of the effects of parental and sibling incarceration in the United States. Parental incarceration has beneficial effects on some important outcomes for children, reducing their likelihood of incarceration by 4.9 percentage points and improving their adult neighborhood quality. While estimates on academic performance and teen parenthood are imprecise, we reject large positive or negative effects. Sibling incarceration leads to similar reductions in criminal activity. (JEL H76, J13, K42)

The association of cultural and environmental factors with mental health among Asian immigrants

Purpose During exposure to new cultures, immigrants face numerous life changes and challenges, which negatively affect mental health, yet environmental supports may address these concerns. This study aims to examine how neighborhood quality, acculturation and acculturative stress are associated with immigrants’ mental health. Design/methodology/approach The sample consisted of 511 Asian immigrants who were born in their country of origin and immigrated to the USA. Path analysis using analysis of moment structures (version 22.0) was conducted to test the hypothesized model. Findings The results from the path analysis indicated that perceived neighborhood quality and acculturative stress had direct effects on mental health among Asian immigrants. The study also found a significant indirect pathway to mental health where more favorable perceptions of neighborhood quality were associated with higher levels of acculturation and lower levels of acculturative stress, which, in turn, resulted in better mental health. Originality/value The results of the study highlight the importance of improving neighborhood quality as a means by which to facilitate cultural adjustment/adaptation to US culture and thus, improve mental health among Asian immigrants. In addition, the authors suggested considering cultural origin in designing health programs and/or policies for Asian immigrants, which could promote mental health among Asian immigrants. Based on the results of the model, this study produced insightful information and suggestions on how to improve Asian immigrants’ mental health more effectively.

Evaluation of Housing Quality in a Selected Urban Fringe of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

Globally, a lot of research efforts have been put into investigating housing quality in urban areas, but little is known about housing situation in the urban fringes of developing nations. This article examines the factors influencing residents’ satisfaction with housing quality in Oke-Andi, an urban fringe in Kwara State, Nigeria. The research design for this study was quantitative in nature. Sampling was carried out at different stages during the field exercise. A preliminary survey of Oke-Andi in Ilorin through satellite imageries and reconnaissance revealed an approximate population of 593 buildings. From this, a 20% sample size, approximated to 120 buildings were randomly sampled and considered reasonable for the study. Using the housing quality criteria drawn from previous contextual studies, validated and pretested structured questionnaires were used to elicit data on respondents’ satisfaction with their dwelling unit, building unit, and neighbourhood quality. Information on residents’ socio-economic characteristics was also collected. From each selected building, a copy of the questionnaire was administered on the household heads or adult representatives. At the end of the survey, 120 questionnaires were administered, but only 100 were subsequently retrieved for data analysis. Simple frequency tables and Principal Component Analysis were used for the analysis of collected data. The result of PCA shows neighbourhood attributes, public utilities and building conditions as the factors influencing residents’ satisfaction with housing quality. The study recommends community driven urban renewal schemes for redevelopment, rehabilitation and upgrading of the quality of urban fringes.

Social Determinants of Housing Quality for U.S. Immigrants: Intersections of Nativity, Race, and Socioeconomic Status

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Indoor hazards can cause poor health with disproportionate burdens among racial/ethnic minorities and low socioeconomic status (SES) households. Little research has examined residential environmental exposures by nativity status, despite immigrants being a rapidly growing U.S. population. We investigated residential characteristics and housing quality by nativity and their intersections with race and SES in the national 2015 American Housing Survey (AHS). METHODS: We generated risk scores for 11 poor-housing quality domains from 54 AHS variables: electricity, thermal discomfort, indoor and outdoor structures, lead-paint risk, bathroom and kitchen facilities, pests, mold, combustion sources, and crowding. We examined clustering of demographic and socio-contextual factors using polyserial correlations. We ran negative binomial regressions to evaluate risk scores by nativity, race, SES, and their interactions and adjusted for socio-contextual factors. RESULTS:Socio-contextual factors correlated with poor-housing quality included being a single-parent, older building age, and poor neighborhood quality and were more prevalent among non-white and low SES households. Adjustment for these factors explained some but not all observed demographic disparities in poor-housing quality. Notably, immigrants had higher risks for crowding, combustion sources, pests, thermal discomfort, and mold than U.S.-natives (exp[ß-hat]:1.08-3.15). Black households had higher risks for the most poor-housing quality domains than other race groups (1.07-1.77). Households at 0-100% federal poverty-level had higher risks for almost all domains compared to higher-income households (1.06-4.08). At the intersections of race and nativity, Latinx and Asian immigrants had higher risks of lead-paint exposure and combustion sources, respectively, than their U.S.-native counterparts. In contrast, Black U.S.-natives fared worse for outdoor structure and combustion sources than Black immigrants. CONCLUSIONS:In the U.S., we found significant disparities in housing quality, with non-white immigrant, Black U.S.-native, and low SES households experiencing worse housing conditions. Our findings underscore the importance of an intersectional framework to identify residential environmental exposure disparities and their socio-contextual drivers. KEYWORDS: Exposures, Environmental disparities, Socio-economic factors, Built environment, Housing quality

Exploring Quality of Life Reported by Norwegian Older Adults Using Classification Tree Approach on Group Profiles

This study aims to explore the variation between- and within subgroups of older adults with regard to low, medium, and high levels of self-reported quality of life (QoL) measured by the WHOQOL-BREF scale. The contribution of interacting personal and contextual life conditions to QoL was examined in a sample of 1,910 (sample frame 6,000) Norwegian men and women aged 62 to 99 years. The data collected by a postal questionnaire were analyzed using the Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) classification method in order to detect unique profiles of groups who shared common characteristics. The CHAID model revealed 15 relatively homogenous groups, but distinct from one another, whose profiles were defined by unique constellations of several interacting variables significantly related to a given QoL level. Mental functioning was predominantly linked to perception of life meaning along with health status, and/or in some cases living arrangement, loneliness, neighborhood quality, and satisfaction with income, and placed an individual at different likelihood levels of reporting low, medium, or high QoL. Socio-demographics had no statistically significant impact on QoL for any subgroup. Through this individual-oriented approach, a periodically ongoing assessment of subjective quality of life (QoL) may be sufficiently powerful to allow detecting and addressing personal concerns and specific needs that detract from quality of life in advancing age.

The role of socioeconomic status and parental investment in adolescent outcomes

Using structural equation modeling on a nationally representative sample of Chinese middle school students in the China Education Panel Survey, this study examines whether the three dimensions of socioeconomic status (SES, i.e., economic status, parental education, and occupational status) are related to adolescent outcomes via different parental investment pathways, as hypothesized by the family investment model (FIM). There were two main findings. First, we found that all three components of SES significantly predicted various domains of family investments and adolescent outcomes. Second, material investments mediated the effects of SES on adolescents’ cognitive ability and behavioral problems, whereas both time investment and neighborhood quality mediated the effects of SES on adolescents’ psychological well-being and behavioral issues. Those findings expand our understanding of the effects of SES when applying the FIM and advance our knowledge of the FIM by identifying the specific mediating mechanisms that may account for family–child linkages.

Quality of the home, daycare and neighborhood environment and the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children in early childhood: A mediation analysis

The objective of this study was to investigate how socioeconomic factors and the quality of ecological environments affect motor and cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children. This is a cross-sectional, predictive and correlational study using structural equation modeling to analyze data on 147 economic disadvantage children of 24–36 months attending public daycare. The Bayley-III Scales, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory, the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition, a socioeconomic index and a specifically designed questionnaire on neighborhood quality were applied. The ecological environments did not affect motor development, but 25 % of variations in cognitive development were explained by socioeconomic differences and differences in the quality of the neighborhood, home and daycare. However, only the quality of the home and daycare had a direct impact, with the other factors affecting the outcome indirectly and to a lesser extent. In conclusion, this study investigated the association between the ecological contexts of economically disadvantaged children and their cognitive and motor development. The findings showed that the environmental context had effect on cognitive development. The home was the environment that exerted the most significant direct effect, followed by daycare and, indirectly and to a lesser extent, the neighborhood. Therefore, the coordination of public policies between health, education and social assistance sectors, aiming at the three ecological environments is important in order to promote the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children.

Not in my neighborhood: the effects of single-family rentals on home values

Since the Great Recession, single-family rentals have increased as a share of the housing units within America's neighborhoods. Homeowners are concerned that this shift in housing tenure will lower their neighborhood's quality and have an adverse effect on their property values. However, no current evidence exists on whether these concerns have any validity. In this paper, we utilize a six-year balanced panel of neighborhoods from the state of Florida's metropolitan areas to study the impacts that single-family rentals have on the values of single-family homes. Our case for causality is buttressed by estimating house value models that include time and neighborhood fixed effects, treat the rentals as endogenous variables, and control for sample selection and changes in neighborhood demographics and land uses. Our results show that share increases in single-family rentals lower house values, but the effects vary between central cities and suburbs, across neighborhoods of different income levels and density, by the price of the rental unit, and whether the owner has a mailing address outside the state of Florida.

Land use disadvantages in Germany: A matter of ethnic income inequalities?

Environmental hazards affect people from different income groups and migration backgrounds on different levels. The research on environmental inequalities and environmental justice has proposed several theories to explain such inequities; still, it remains unclear which of these theories applies to the German societal context. This research investigates whether individual-level income differences between Germans and migrants account for objectively measured exposure to the environmental goods and bads of land use, specifically soil sealing and green spaces. Marginal effects and predictions based on georeferenced survey data from the German General Social Survey reveal that Germans with higher incomes live in areas with better neighbourhood quality. Germans with lower incomes are exposed to fewer disadvantages stemming from land use, and there is no marginal difference between nonurban and urban municipalities. Spatial assimilation in high-income groups occurs; however, the difference in low-income groups can be explained by place stratification and discrimination in the housing market. While this study uses more indirect and non-hazardous measures of environmental quality – in contrast to air pollution or noise – it provides evidence that such indicators also create distributional injustices in Germany.

Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Tree Diversity and Distribution in Urban Resettlement Areas for Displaced Farmers

Resettlement residential areas (RRAs) are a unique product of China’s urbanisation process. Their greening environment is critical to the quality of life and liveable green neighbourhood of the displaced farmers. Our study aimed to (1) interpret the species composition of the landscape trees and their contributions to urban biodiversity in RRAs, and (2) elucidate the structural changes in the tree composition in the last 20 years. Twenty selected RRAs in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, were divided into three categories by completion year. We assessed tree species composition, floristic diversity, tree dimensions, importance value, RRA characteristics, and greening management. The sampled sites accommodated 741 stems and 52 species belonging to 25 families. The three most abundant species were Cinnamomum camphora, Osmanthus fragrans, and Magnolia grandiflora, constituting 45.75% of all trees. The importance values revealed a changing tree planting pattern over time, with persistent domination by a few species. The oldest sites did not harbour the largest trees due to long-term mismanagement and mistreatment by residents. Compared with other housing types and cities, the tree count, importance value, and diversity in RRAs were low. The species diversity was not correlated with RRA completion time, distance from the city centre, and RRA area. The trees were in poor shape with limited trunk diameter and tree height and suffered from frequent and drastic pruning. Residents with lingering farmer mentality commonly exploited the vegetation and green spaces indiscriminately as natural resources. The greenery management could be overhauled by increasing tree number, native species, species diversity, and tree-care quality and engaging residents in a collaborative and participatory mode for a joint maintenance endeavour. The findings offer a scientific basis to improve or design RRA green spaces.

Seniors’ Mobility and Perceptions in Different Urban Neighbourhoods: A Non-Aggregative Approach

In order to highlight the subjective criticality of each neighbourhood to inspire future policy actions, we propose an analysis comparing the perceptions of over-65s residents in the neighbourhoods that make up the Municipality of Genoa. We suggest a new approach based on a quantitative non-aggregative method, Partially Ordered Set (Poset), to measure the levels of satisfaction related to local public transport (LPT), pedestrian mobility, and quality of life in the 25 districts of Genoa. Final data of the analysis come from 401 questionnaires, distributed to residents over 65 years old in the Municipality of Genoa. This approach allows to address the multidimensionality of the phenomenon, as well as its different conceptual spheres. The findings highlight a great variance in local public transport needs perception between different neighbourhoods. In particular, the analysis shows that the types of intervention requested by respondents differ from district to district, so that a common urban transport policy would be ineffective. Some neighbourhoods stress the need for improving pedestrian mobility, whilst local public transport faults dominate in others. There is no significant relation between the three dimensions: Perceived quality of LPT, perceived quality of pedestrian mobility, and perceived quality of neighbourhood. Therefore, interventions should be carefully modulated, according to the specific needs expressed by the residents of each neighbourhood. We conclude that the importance of urban mobility intervention is reduced, whereas the concept of neighbourhood analysis and intervention becomes more relevant.

Social Interventions, Health, and Well-Being

We analyze the long-run and intergenerational effects of a large-scale school building project (INPRES) that took place in Indonesia between 1974 and 1979. Specifically, we link the geographic rollout of INPRES to longitudinal data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey covering two generations. We find that individuals exposed to the program have better health later in life along multiple measures. We also find that the children of those exposed also experience improved health and educational outcomes and that these effects are generally stronger for maternal exposure than paternal exposure. We find some evidence that household resources, neighborhood quality, and assortative mating may explain a portion of our results. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the long-run and multigenerational benefits when evaluating the costs and benefits of social interventions in a middle-income country.

The Association Between Neighborhood Social Vulnerability and Cardiovascular Health Risk Among Black/African American Women in the InterGEN Study.

Black/African American women in the United States are more likely to live in neighborhoods with higher social vulnerability than other racial/ethnic groups, even when adjusting for personal income. Social vulnerability, defined as the degree to which the social conditions of a community affect its ability to prevent loss and suffering in the event of disaster, has been used in research as an objective measure of neighborhood social vulnerability. Black/African American women also have the highest rates of hypertension and obesity in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between neighborhood social vulnerability and cardiovascular risk (hypertension and obesity) among Black/African American women. We conducted a secondary analysis of data from the InterGEN Study that enrolled Black/African American women in the Northeast United States. Participants' addresses were geocoded to ascertain neighborhood vulnerability using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index at the census tract level. We used multivariable regression models to examine associations between objective measures of neighborhood quality and indicators of structural racism and systolic and diastolic blood pressure and obesity (body mass index > 24.9) and to test psychological stress, coping, and depression as potential moderators of these relationships. Seventy-four percent of participating Black/African American women lived in neighborhoods in the top quartile for social vulnerability nationally. Women living in the top 10% of most socially vulnerable neighborhoods in our sample had more than a threefold greater likelihood of hypertension when compared to those living in less vulnerable neighborhoods. Objective neighborhood measures of structural racism (percentage of poverty, percentage of unemployment, percentage of residents >25 years old without a high school diploma, and percentage of residents without access to a vehicle) were significantly associated with elevated diastolic blood pressure and obesity in adjusted models. Psychological stress had a significant moderating effect on the associations between neighborhood vulnerability and cardiovascular risk. We identified important associations between structural racism, the neighborhood environment, and cardiovascular health among Black/African American women. These findings add to a critical body of evidence documenting the role of structural racism in perpetuating health inequities and highlight the need for a multifaceted approach to policy, research, and interventions to address racial health inequities.

CAN RETURN MIGRATION REVITALISE LATVIA’S REGIONS? FACILITATORS AND BARRIERS TO HUMAN CAPITAL GAINS

Migration researchers from East-Central Europe most often focus on the impact of ‘brain drain’ which is characterised by the loss of human capital from emigration. In this paper focus is placed on the assumption that migrants living abroad gain valuable experiences and education opportunities, that lead to personal growth, facilitate entrepreneurship and psychological resilience, amongst other important skills. This experience may be used for the revitalisation of the less-developed regions the migrants return to. To explore what facilitates or inhibits the fulfil potential of ‘brain circulation’ or gain, we use data from two large-scale surveys of return migrants in Latvia, in-depth interviews, media analysis, regional workshops and secondary data. We find that return migrants often choose to return to the capital city and not their original point of departure. While towns and villages offer some advantages such as little competition, easier adaptation and high neighbourhood quality, reliance on personal contacts distorts the efficiency of job placement and there are fewer work opportunities in one’s acquired profession. The skills are waisted and employers remain unappreciative of knowledge gained abroad in towns and villages more than in Riga.

Abstract 003: Neighborhood Characteristics And Arterial Stiffness Among Black Adults - Results From The Jackson Heart Study & Morehouse Emory Center For Health Equity

Introduction: Poor quality neighborhoods are independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) but are understudied in Blacks, who face large CVD health disparities. Arterial stiffness (AS) precedes development of hypertension and adverse CVD events but the effect of neighborhood on AS among Blacks remain unknown. Objective: We compared the association between neighborhood environment and AS among Blacks in Jackson, MS and Atlanta, GA. Methods: We studied 1592 Blacks (age 58 ± 10, 38% male) living in Jackson, MS from the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) and 451 Blacks (age 53 ± 10, 39% male) living in Atlanta, GA from the Morehouse/Emory Center for Health Equity (MECA) study, without known CVD. Neighborhood problems (includes measures of aesthetic quality, walking environment, food access), social cohesion (includes activity with neighbors), and violence/safety were assessed using validated questionnaires. AS was measured as pulse wave velocity (PWV) using MRI in JHS and as PWV and augmentation index (AIx) using applanation tonometry (Sphygmocor Inc) in MECA. Multivariable linear regression models were used to examine the association between neighborhood characteristics and AS, adjusting for potential confounders. Results: Improved social characteristics, measured as social cohesion in JHS (β = -0.32 [-0.63, - 0.02], p=0.04) and activity with neighbors (β = -0.23 [-0.40, - 0.05] p=0.01) in MECA, were associated with lower PWV in both cohorts and lower AIx (β = -1.74 [-2.92, - 0.56], p=0.004) in MECA, after adjustment for CVD risk factors and income. Additionally, in MECA better food access (β = -1.18 [-2.35, - 0.01], p=0.05) was associated with lower AIx, and in JHS, lower neighborhood problems (β = -0.33 [-0.64, - 0.02], p=0.04) and lower violence (β = -0.30 [-0.61, 0.002], p=0.05) were associated with lower PWV (Fig). Conclusion: Neighborhood social characteristics show an independent association with vascular health of Blacks, findings that were reproducible in two distinct American cities.

Older People as Active Agents in Their Neighborhood Environments: Moving House Can Improve Quality of Life.

Neighborhood environments are an important aspect of well-being for older people. Developments of the general ecological model recognize older people as active agents who adapt their environments to fit their changing needs. We provide empirical support for a model suggested by Wahl et al., by examining interactions between neighborhood environments, personal situations, relocation, and quality of life (QoL) among older people. Two statistical models were tested with a sample of community-dwelling participants (aged 55-89) in the New Zealand Health, Work, and Retirement longitudinal surveys conducted in 2016 (T1) and 2018 (T2). Multiple linear regression assessed the association of perceptions of housing and neighborhood with QoL at T1 (n = 3682). QoL was predicted by housing satisfaction, and neighborhood satisfaction, accessibility, and trust (controlling for age, gender, marital status, home ownership, socioeconomic status, physical health, and mental health). Mixed analysis of variance showed that those who moved house between T1 and T2 reported lower housing and neighborhood satisfaction than nonmovers at T1. Over time T1-T2, movers reported less decline in housing satisfaction, and more positive change on all neighborhood perceptions, with higher perceptions of neighborhood accessibility than nonmovers at T2. These findings support the theoretical model and provide the impetus for a more detailed study of the effects of the environment on well-being in older age. Housing and neighborhood environments are a very practical focus for social policy change at local and national levels.

Association Between Childhood Neighborhood Quality and the Risk of Cognitive Dysfunction in Chinese Middle-Aged and Elderly Population: The Moderation Effect of Body Mass Index.

Background: Identification of early modifiable factors is crucial to delay or prevent the development of cognitive impairment and reduce the social and economic burden.Objective: This study aimed to examine the longitudinal associations of childhood neighborhood quality (CNQ) with the risk of later-life cognitive dysfunction and the role of body mass index (BMI) in this association.Methods: A total of 8,289 community-dwelling middle-aged and elderly population from wave 2011, wave 2013, and wave 2015 of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were included. Cognitive function and CNQ were measured by standardized questionnaires. Multilevel linear regression models were used to estimate the associations of CNQ and cognitive function. The interactions of BMI with CNQ in the progress of cognitive function were also estimated.Results: The participants with higher CNQ had a significantly low risk of cognitive impairment than those with lower CNQ score (β = 0.067, 95% CI: 0.031, 0.103), and the results remained similar (β = 0.039, 95% CI: 0.004, 0.075) after controlling other confounding variables. Furthermore, there was an interaction between BMI with CNQ score (P < 0.001) for the risk of cognitive impairment. In BMI-stratified analysis, we found that the association of CNQ and cognitive function was not statistically significant in overweight or obese population (β = 0.019, 95% CI: −0.032, 0.070), but was statistically significant in people with lower BMI (β = 0.059, 95% CI: 0.010, 0.107).Conclusions: Higher CNQ score is significantly associated with the lower risk of cognitive dysfunction in adulthood. BMI may moderate the associations of CNQ with the risk of cognitive function.