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Moving to opportunity and mental health: Exploring the spatial context of neighborhood effects
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Moving to opportunity and mental health: Exploring the spatial context of neighborhood effects

Corina Graif, Mariana C. Arcaya and Ana V. Diez Roux
Social science & medicine (1982), v 162
Aug 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.05.036
PMID: 27337349
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.05.036View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (Publisher-Specific),  Open

Abstract

Disadvantage Moving to opportunity Neighborhoods Spatial context United States
Studies of housing mobility and neighborhood effects on health often treat neighborhoods as if they were isolated islands. This paper argues that conceptualizing neighborhoods as part of the wider spatial context within which they are embedded may be key in advancing our understanding of the role of local context in the life of urban dwellers. Analyses are based on mental health and neighborhood context measurements taken on over 3000 low-income families who participated in the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program (MTO), a large field experiment in five major U.S. cities. Results from analyses of two survey waves combined with Census data at different geographic scales indicate that assignment to MTO’s experimental condition of neighborhood poverty <10% significantly decreased average exposure to immediate and surrounding neighborhood disadvantage by 97% and 59% of a standard deviation, respectively, relative to the control group. Escaping concentrated disadvantage in either the immediate neighborhood or the surrounding neighborhood, but not both, was insufficient to make a difference for mental health. Instead, the results suggest that improving both the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods significantly benefits mental health. Compared to remaining in concentrated disadvantage in the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods, escaping concentrated disadvantage in both the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods (on average over the study duration) as a result of the intervention predicts an increase of 25% of a standard deviation in the composite mental health scores. •Randomized intervention re-visits neighborhood effects on mental health.•Explored multiple scales and configurations of neighborhood poverty and disadvantage.•Concentrated disadvantage in neighborhoods was compared to improved conditions.•Declines in disadvantage at both spatial scales yielded mental health benefits.•We conclude that both surrounding and immediate neighborhoods matter for health.

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15 Record Views
54 citations in Web of Science
54 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#10 Reduced Inequalities
#3 Good Health and Well-Being

InCites Highlights

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Social Sciences, Biomedical
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