Abstract
Over the last two decades, research has assessed the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic factors and individual health. However, existing research is based almost exclusively on cross-sectional data, ignoring the complexity in health transitions that may be shaped by long-term residential exposures. We address these limitations by specifying distinct health transitions over multiple waves of a 15-year study of American adults. We focus on transitions between a hierarchy of health states, (free from health problems, onset of health problems, and death), not just gradients in a single health indicator over time, and use a cumulative measure of exposure to neighborhoods over adulthood. We find that cumulative exposure to neighborhood disadvantage has significant effects on functional decline and mortality. Research ignoring a persons' history of exposure to residential contexts over the life course runs the risk of underestimating the role of neighborhood disadvantage on health.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 115-142 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | Research on Aging |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by National Institute on Aging grant R01AG018418.
Keywords
- functional health
- life course
- mortality
- neighborhood effects
- panel data
- socioeconomic status