Residents Of Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Research Articles

Neighborhood of residence and incidence of coronary heart disease.

Where a person lives is not usually thought of as an independent predictor of his or her health, although physical and social features of places of residence may affect health and health-related behavior. Using data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, we examined the relation between characteristics of neighborhoods and the incidence of coronary heart disease. Participants were 45 to 64 years of age at base line and were sampled from four study sites in the United States: Forsyth County, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis; and Washington County, Maryland. As proxies for neighborhoods, we used block groups containing an average of 1000 people, as defined by the U.S. Census. We constructed a summary score for the socioeconomic environment of each neighborhood that included information about wealth and income, education, and occupation. During a median of 9.1 years of follow-up, 615 coronary events occurred in 13,009 participants. Residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods (those with lower summary scores) had a higher risk of disease than residents of advantaged neighborhoods, even after we controlled for personal income, education, and occupation. Hazard ratios for coronary events in the most disadvantaged group of neighborhoods as compared with the most advantaged group--adjusted for age, study site, and personal socioeconomic indicators--were 1.7 among whites (95 percent confidence interval, 1.3 to 2.3) and 1.4 among blacks (95 percent confidence interval, 0.9 to 2.0). Neighborhood and personal socioeconomic indicators contributed independently to the risk of disease. Hazard ratios for coronary heart disease among low-income persons living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, as compared with high-income persons in the most advantaged neighborhoods were 3.1 among whites (95 percent confidence interval, 2.1 to 4.8) and 2.5 among blacks (95 percent confidence interval, 1.4 to 4.5). These associations remained unchanged after adjustment for established risk factors for coronary heart disease. Even after controlling for personal income, education, and occupation, we found that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with an increased incidence of coronary heart disease.

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Stress, and Drug Use among Adults

This paper explores the relationships among neighborhood disadvantage, stress, and the likelihood of drug use in a sample of adults (N = 1,101). Using the 1995 Detroit Area Study in conjunction with tract-level data from the 1990 census, we find a positive relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and drug use, and this relationship remains statistically significant net of controls for individual-level socioeconomic status. Neighborhood disadvantage is moderately associated with drug related behaviors, indirectly through increased social stressors and higher levels of psychological distress among residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods. A residual effect of neighborhood disadvantage remains, net of a large number of socially relevant controls. Finally, results from interactive models suggest that the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and drug use is most pronounced among individuals with lower incomes.

Does Americanization Have Adverse Effects on Health?: Stress, Health Habits, and Infant Health Outcomes among Puerto Ricans

Generational differences in the social circumstances, health habits, and infant health outcomes of Puerto Rican women are examined using recently collected data from the Puerto Rican Maternal and Infant Health Study. The results show that recent migrants to the U.S. mainland experiencefewer stressful life events and are less likely to engage in negative health behaviors durtingpregnancy than U.S.-born Puerto Rican women. Recent migrants also exhibit better infant health outcomes than childhood migrants and U.S.born women. Riskfactors (e.g., low hunman capital, meagerfinancial resources, and residence in disadvantaged neighborhoods) andprotectivefactors (e.g., strongfamily support and a Latino cultural orientation) identified in theories of segmented assimilation are related to the outcomes examined but cannot explain the generational differences that are documented. The study of how immigrants to the U.S. and their descendants become incorporated into American society has long been guided by assimilation theory (Gordon 1964; Park 1950; Park & Burgess 1921), which has recently reemerged as a topic of intense debate among scholars of ethnic relations. The classic assimilation perspective proposes that as immigrants spend time in the U.S. they gradually replace their old cultural and behavioral patterns with those of the