Neighbourhood Contextual Effects Research Articles

The long‐term impact of Danish vulnerable neighbourhoods in adolescence on employment status in emerging adulthood

AbstractPrevious studies have linked growing up in vulnerable neighbourhoods to worse health and social outcomes in adulthood but with mixed findings regarding the impact on young people's employment status, and with studies often limited by models that did not optimally distinguish neighbourhood‐ from individual‐ or family‐level effects. The aim of this study was to examine the long‐term associations between living in a vulnerable Danish neighbourhood in adolescence and later employment status in emerging adulthood and to compare the relative importance of the family and neighbourhood contexts. Danish population register data were used to follow 390,574 individuals nested in 301,227 families, which were nested in 7,937 neighbourhoods from age 10–15 in 2009 to age 20–25 in 2019. Three‐level logistic regression models stratified by native and immigrant/descendant status were applied to estimate the general and specific family and neighbourhood contextual effects. The results showed higher general contextual effects attributed to the family context than to neighbourhoods, with vulnerable neighbourhoods explaining only a small part of the neighbourhood variance. After controlling for individual‐ and family‐level covariates, living in a vulnerable neighbourhood in adolescence was associated with a higher risk of not being in education or employment in emerging adulthood for both native Danes and immigrants/descendants. The findings indicate that growing up in a vulnerable neighbourhood may have a long‐term impact on employment status but with a much larger influence attributed to the family context than to adolescents’ neighbourhood context.

Examining the association between HIV prevalence and socioeconomic factors among young people in Zambia: Do neighbourhood contextual effects play a role?

BackgroundThe study examined the association between HIV infection and individual and neighbourhood-level socioeconomic factors in Zambia.MethodsWe used multilevel mixed effects logistic regression to examine the association of individual and neighbourhood level variables on HIV prevalence based on data from the 2013–14 and 2018 Zambia Demographic and Health Surveys, population-based cross-sectional surveys. The analysis was restricted to young people (15–24 years) with HIV serostatus results (n = 11,751 and n = 10,154). HIV serostatus was the outcome variable and socioeconomic status was measured by wealth, education and employment.ResultsOverall, at individual level, education was associated with reduced odds of HIV infection among young women and men. Conversely, relative wealth was generally associated with increased odds of infection for both young women and men. Young, employed men were at reduced odds of HIV infection than the unemployed. Living in neighbourhoods with higher average level of education was associated with higher odds of HIV infection. In 2013–14, 13% and 11% of the variation in HIV infection among young men and women was attributed to neighbourhoods, while 20% and 11% variation was attributed to neighbourhoods in 2018. Inclusion of individual and neighbourhood variables in the full regression model accounted for 65.7% and 59.5% of explained variance in 2013–14 and 64.6% and 44.3% in 2018, for women and men, respectively. This reduced unexplained variance by an average of 56% in 2013–14 and 29% in 2018.ConclusionWe found that HIV infection among young people in Zambia is more strongly associated with individual-level socioeconomic factors compared to neighbourhood factors. Individual-level education remains an important socioeconomic factor associated with reduced odds of HIV infection. This suggests that the HIV response in Zambia should still focus on individual level prevention strategies.

Immediate and Neighborhood Contextual Effects on Intentional, Accidental, and Fatal Drug Overdoses in a Non-Urban Jurisdiction

ABSTRACT Drug overdoses in the United States have been dramatically increasing since the late 1990 s. Research has been successful in identifying individual-level correlates of overdoses, but often fails to examine contextual effects. Using data from one police department, the U.S. Census, and ReferenceUSA, we test the effects of block group (N = 34) and parcel (N = 21,489) variables reflective of social disorganization and availability-proneness theories on drug overdoses taking place in one non-urban jurisdiction over four years (N = 396). Furthermore, we test the ability of mental health and social-community service providers to mitigate the harmful effect of poverty. Because effects may vary across intent or outcome, accidental, intentional, and fatal overdoses were modeled independently. Based on multilevel analysis (HLM7), several variables were positively associated with overdoses; however, service providers in high poverty areas, as well as bars in general, elicited negative associations. Lastly, contextual effects varied based by type of overdose.

Decomposition of the US black/white inequality in premature mortality, 2010–2015: an observational study

ObjectiveDecompose the US black/white inequality in premature mortality into shared and group-specific risks to better inform health policy.SettingAll 50 US states and the District of Columbia, 2010 to 2015.ParticipantsA total...

The neighborhood environment and obesity: Understanding variation by race/ethnicity

Neighborhood characteristics have been associated with obesity, but less is known whether relationships vary by race/ethnicity. This study examined the relationship between soda consumption – a behavior strongly associated with obesity – and weight status with neighborhood sociodemographic, social, and built environments by race/ethnicity. We merged data on adults from the 2011–2013 California Health Interview Survey, U.S. Census data, and InfoUSA (n=62,396). Dependent variables were soda consumption and weight status outcomes (body mass index and obesity status). Main independent variables were measures of three neighborhood environments: social (social cohesion and safety), sociodemographic (neighborhood socioeconomic status, educational attainment, percent Asian, percent Hispanic, and percent black), and built environments (number of grocery stores, convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and gyms in neighborhood). We fit multi-level linear and logistic regression models, stratified by individual race/ethnicity (NH (non-Hispanic) Whites, NH African Americans, Hispanics, and NH Asians) controlling for individual-level characteristics, to estimate neighborhood contextual effects on study outcomes. Lower neighborhood educational attainment was associated with higher odds of obesity and soda consumption in all racial/ethnic groups. We found fewer associations between study outcomes and the neighborhood, especially the built environment, among NH African Americans and NH Asians. While improvements to neighborhood environment may be promising to reduce obesity, null associations among minority subgroups suggest that changes, particularly to the built environment, may alone be insufficient to address obesity in these groups.

Social Quality and Health: Examining Individual and Neighbourhood Contextual Effects Using a Multilevel Modelling Approach

Social quality focusses on the nature of ‘the social’, arguing that people are realised as social beings through interacting with a range of collectives, both from the formal world of systems and the informal lifeworld. Four conditional factors are necessary for this to occur, which at the same time are assumed to influence health and well-being: socio-economic security, social cohesion, social inclusion and social empowerment. In this paper we test the utility of social quality in explaining self-rated health as a response to arguments that the social determinants of health (SDH) framework often lacks a theoretical basis. We use multilevel models to analyse national English and Welsh data (the Citizenship Survey) to test for both individual- and neighbour-level affects. Our key findings are that (1) neighbourhood contextual (cross-level) effects are present with respect to collective action, personal trust, cross-cutting ties, income sufficiency, and income security; (2) measures of national, community and personal identity as indicators of social cohesion show clear associations with health alongside more common measures such as trust; (3) the security aspects of socioeconomic determinants are especially important (housing security, income sufficiency, and income security); (4) social rights, including institutional rights but especially civil rights have effects of particularly large magnitude. Social quality offers a theoretically-driven perspective on the SDH which has important policy implications and suggests a number of promising avenues for future research.

Adolescent Mental Health

The purpose of this article is to explore the role of neighborhood characteristics, specifically economic disadvantage/advantage, residential instability, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity on emotional distress (depressed affect, anxiety, hopelessness) among youth. Using a regional sample of adolescents and matching their data to census tracts, we use hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationship of neighborhood spatial factors on distress while controlling for individual, family, peer, and school factors. Results show neighborhood effects for adolescent distress are consistent with a stress process model where economic disadvantage and residential instability are positively associated with emotional distress, and indicators of economic advantage are negatively related. Specifically, we find neighborhood unemployment and housing vacancy rates are associated with increased distress, while the percentage of college graduates and foreign-born residents in the neighborhood is associated with reduced distress. We discuss the implications of our findings for ongoing research on neighborhood contextual effects and adolescent health.

Correction: Decline in Sexual Risk Behaviours among Young People in Zambia (2000–2009): Do Neighbourhood Contextual Effects Play a Role?

Correction: Decline in Sexual Risk Behaviours among Young People in Zambia (2000–2009): Do Neighbourhood Contextual Effects Play a Role?

Immigrant health, place effect and regional disparities in Canada

The paper addresses a critically important area in Canadian immigration and health from both a social and a spatial perspective. It employs multilevel and contextual approaches to examine the social determinants of immigrant health as well as the place effects on self-reported health at a regional and neighborhood scale. The data come from the raw microdata file of the 2005-10 Canadian Community Health Survey (a random national health survey) and the publicly available Canadian Marginalization index based on the 2006 Census. Three populations are compared: Canadian-born, overall foreign-born, and Chinese immigrants. The results suggest various degrees of association between self-reported health, individual and lifestyle behavioral characteristics, and neighborhood material deprivation and ethnic concentration in census tracts. These factors contribute differently to the reported health of Chinese immigrants, Canada's largest recent immigrant group. A healthy immigrant effect is partially evident in the overall foreign-born population, but appears to be relatively weak in Chinese immigrants. For all groups, neighborhood deprivation moderately increases the likelihood of reporting poor health. Ethnic concentration negatively affects self-rated health, with the exception of the slight protective effect of Chinese-specific ethnic density in census tracts. The multilevel models reveal significant area inequalities across Census Metropolitan Areas/Census Agglomerations in risk of reporting unhealthy status, with greater magnitude in the foreign-born population. The vast regional variations in health among Chinese immigrants should be interpreted carefully due to the group's heavy concentration in large cities. The study contributes to the literature on ethnicity and health by systematically incorporating neighborhood contextual effects in modeling the social determinants of immigrant health status. It fills a gap in the literature on neighborhoods and health by focusing on ethnically disparate groups rather than on the general population. By revealing regional disparities in health, the paper adds a spatial perspective to the work on immigrant health.

Decline in Sexual Risk Behaviours among Young People in Zambia (2000–2009): Do Neighbourhood Contextual Effects Play a Role?

ObjectiveThis study examined trends in premarital sex, multiple partnership and condom use among young people (15–24 years) in Zambia from 2000 to 2009, and assessed the effects of individual and neighbourhood variables on these sexual behaviour indicators in 2000 and 2009.MethodologyWe analysed data from the Zambia Sexual Behaviour Survey, conducted in 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2009. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to select 385 neighbourhoods, giving a population sample of 6,500 young people. Using linear-by-linear trend test, trends in the three indicators were examined. Multilevel logistic regression was used to assess the effects of individual and neighbourhood variables on the indicators.ResultsPremarital sex among young people decreased significantly from 51 to 42% between 2000 and 2009. Multiple partnerships of men also decreased from 26 to 14% during the same period. The use of condoms by young people remained stable during this period. Full multilevel regression models explained 29 and 34% of the neighbourhood variance of premarital sex in 2000 and 2009. For multiple partnerships and condom use, the explained variance was 29 and 18% in 2000; whereas in 2009 it was extremely low. Urban residence and living in neighbourhood with higher average duration of residence were associated with low premarital sex and higher condom use. Living in a neighbourhood with higher average level of comprehensive knowledge of HIV was associated with less risky sexual behaviour.ConclusionDeclining trends in premarital sex and multiple partnerships are among the factors that might explain the decrease in HIV incidence in Zambia among young people. However, condom use among young people has remained low and stable over the years. The results also suggest that behaviour change interventions should take stock of the social context when introducing individual-level programmes because neighbourhood factors play a considerable role in influencing sexual behaviour.

Neighborhood Perceptions and Emotional Well‐Being in Young Adulthood

While mounting research suggests that neighborhood environment impacts mental health outcomes, for adolescents and adults, there is scant research on how perceived neighborhood context affects young adults. In this article, we explore the role of perceived neighborhood characteristics, specifically indicators of perceived neighborhood stressors, on emotional well-being among young adults. Using a regional sample of young adults, we estimate regression models to examine the relationship of perceived neighborhood stressors on three mental health outcomes (depressed affect, hopelessness, and anger), reflective of a general emotional well-being, while controlling for key individual characteristics related to mental health outcomes. Results show perceived neighborhood effects for emotional well-being consistent with a stress process model where the scale of perceived neighborhood stressors is associated with poor emotional well-being for depressed affect and hopelessness. Specific perceived neighborhood measures were significant for each of the mental health outcomes whereby greater perceptions of unsafe conditions and economic hardship are positively associated with poor emotional well-being and greater social intervention and more social attachments are associated with better emotional well-being. For young adults, perceptions of neighborhood stressors are related to indicators of mental health. We discuss the implications of our findings for ongoing research on neighborhood contextual effects and mental health during the transition to adulthood.

Measuring Individual Disaster Recovery: A Socioecological Framework

Disaster recovery is a complex phenomenon. Too often, recovery is measured in singular fashion, such as quantifying rebuilt infrastructure or lifelines, without taking in to account the affected population's individual and community recovery. A comprehensive framework is needed that encompasses a much broader and far-reaching construct with multiple underlying dimensions and numerous causal pathways; without the consideration of a comprehensive framework that investigates relationships between these factors, an accurate measurement of recovery may not be valid. This study proposes a model that encapsulates these ideas into a single framework, the Socio-Ecological Model of Recovery. Using confirmatory factor analysis, an operational measure of recovery was developed and validated using the five measures of housing stability, economic stability, physical health, mental health, and social role adaptation. The data were drawn from a sample of displaced households following Hurricane Katrina. Measures of psychological strength, risk, disaster exposure, neighborhood contextual effects, and formal and informal help were modeled to examine their direct and indirect effects on recovery using a structural equation model. All five elements of the recovery measure were positively correlated with a latent measure of recovery, although mental health and social role adaptation displayed the strongest associations. An individual's psychological strength had the greatest association with positive recovery, followed by having a household income greater than $20,000 and having informal social support. Those factors most strongly associated with an absence of recovery included the time displaced since the hurricane, being disabled, and living in a community with substantial social disorder. The socio-ecological framework provides a robust means for measuring recovery, and for testing those factors associated with the presence or absence of recovery.

Contextual Effects and Adolescent Substance Use: Exploring the Role of Neighborhoods*

Objective. The purpose of this article is to explore the additive and moderating effects of neighborhood context on substance use among youth.Methods. Using a regional sample of adolescents and matching the data to Census tracts, we use hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and neighborhood instability on alcohol and marijuana use while controlling for individual, family, and peer characteristics.Results. For both alcohol and marijuana use measures, we find neighborhood disadvantage has a consistent negative direct effect; adolescents living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods have lower rates of use. In addition, neighborhood disadvantage moderates the effect of a key individual risk factor. Specifically, we find living in areas with higher neighborhood disadvantage reduces the effect of deviant peers on adolescent substance use.Conclusions. Findings, while showing effects of neighborhood disadvantage, are inconsistent with the typical neighborhood disorganization framework. We discuss the implications of our findings for ongoing research on neighborhood contextual effects and adolescent behaviors.

The neighborhood effects of disrupted family processes on adolescent substance use

In the current paper, we argue that the neighborhood-level of disrupted family processes (weak social ties to parents and coercive family interaction) should have a contextual effect on adolescent substance use (cigarette smoking, heavy drinking, and lifetime cannabis use), because adolescents living in neighborhoods in which disrupted family processes are prevalent should be more likely to associate with deviant (substance using) peers. We use nested data on 5491 Icelandic adolescents aged 15 and 16 years in 83 neighborhoods to examine the neighborhood-contextual effects of disrupted family processes on adolescent substance use (cigarette smoking, heavy drinking, and lifetime cannabis use), that is, whether neighborhoods in which disrupted family processes are common have more adolescent substance use, even after partialling out the individual-level effects of disrupted family processes on substance use. As predicted, we find that the neighborhood-levels of disrupted family processes have significant, contextual effects on all the indicators of substance use, and that association with substance using peers mediates a part of these contextual effects. The findings illustrate the limitation of an individual-level approach to adolescent substance use.

A Multilevel Analysis of Neighbourhood Contextual Effects on Serious Juvenile Offending

The extent and nature of contextual effects on juvenile offending are frequent subjects of current research, mainly in the USA. After a short literature review, this paper presents empirical results of a new study which hints at the existence of neighbourhood contextual effects on serious offending by adolescents. The study is based on three types of cross-sectional data on 61 neighbourhoods in two German cities and a rural area: a self-report survey of students aged about 13 to 16, a separate survey of residents in the survey neighbourhoods, and census and administrative data on the same neighbourhoods. Multilevel analysis is applied to identify and explain the neighbourhood-level variance of selfreported serious juvenile offending. Hypotheses from both main traditions of theoretical reasoning about contextual effects on juvenile delinquency - subcultural and disorganization theories - are supported by the empirical findings. The spatial concentration of adolescents with attitudes typical of delinquent subcultures increases the likelihood of serious offending net of relevant individual predictors, whereas the social capital of neighbourhoods (as measured by the independent survey of residents) reduces it. Methodological problems of applying multilevel analysis to delinquency research are discussed.

Neighborhood Context and Residential Mobility

This paper extends the search for neighborhood contextual effects to residential mobility. We propose that neighborhood consists of subjective and objective domains, both of which are crosscut by substantive (social/physical) and temporal (current/change) dimensions. Measures of neighborhood characteristics consistent with our conceptualization are used to estimate the impact of context on mobility thoughts and on actual mobility in a sample of Nashville residents. Although individual statuses such as age and tenure remain important antecedents of mobility, subjective features of neighborhood context also play a role--albeit limited and indirect--in the decision to move or to stay.