National Poverty Center Are Some Neighborhoods Bad for Your Health? Are Some Neighborhood Bad for Your Health? Are Some Neighborhoods Bad for Your Health? Defining and Studying Neighborhoods

This paper was delivered at a National Poverty Center conference. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Poverty Center or any sponsoring agency. Abstract A large percentage of poor, minority families in the U.S. reside in high-poverty, urban neighborhoods characterized by dilapidated housing, crime, and unemployment. A variety of policies have been implemented in the past decade to reduce the concentration of neighborhood poverty, decrease racial/ethnic segregation, and/or improve housing stock. Neighborhood mobility programs in which low-income families residing in older high-rise public housing in inner-city neighborhoods are selected to move to either public or private housing in low-poverty neighborhoods is one such policy mechanism. When selection to the new neighborhoods occurs randomly (via, for example, random assignment), comparisons between families who moved and demographically-similar families who remained in the origin neighborhoods can be conducted. Our chapter focuses on two such experiments—the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) for Fair Housing Demonstration in five U.S. Cities and the Yonkers Project in Yonkers, NY. Follow-ups of participating families were conducted in both experiments about 2 years and, again, 5 to 7 years after the program commenced. Outcomes examined include physical aspects of health (ratings of poor health, weight, and asthma) as well as emotional and behavioral aspects of health (depression, anxiety, aggression, drug and alcohol use). In many cases, data are available for parents (primarily the mother) and their 8-to 18-year-old offspring. Potential pathways of neighborhood effects including exposure to violence and neighborhood disorder, community social processes and resources, and housing quality are also reviewed. Limitations of neighborhood mobility programs such as movers' tenure in low-poverty neighborhoods, discrimination, and possible selection effects, as well as recommendations for future housing policy efforts conclude the chapter. Over the last several decades, researchers from diverse disciplines have documented the negative impacts of poverty on the health and well-being of children and adults. Explorations of the links between neighborhood disadvantage and families' outcomes have added another layer to poverty research. Poor families have limited choice regarding where they live and often reside in impoverished neighborhoods, where public housing and low-rent apartments are prevalent. According to data from the 2000 Census, more than 15 million people in the U.S. live in extremely impoverished neighborhoods, characterized by poverty rates of at least 30 percent and high rates of female-headed households, low …