Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #106207

Margaret M. Weden, PhD¹, Richard M. Carpiano, PhD¹, Stephanie A. Robert, PhD², and Catlainn K. Sionean, PhD¹. (1) Population Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 610 North Walnut Street, 1007 WARF Office Building, Madison, WI 53726, 608-890-0200, weden@wisc.edu, (2) Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 312 School of Social Work, 1350 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706

Objectives: We examine the joint and separate effects of perceived neighborhood quality and census tract socioeconomic characteristics on adult health.

Methods: Data are from Wave IV (2002) of the Americans Changing Lives Study (a nationally representative panel study of adults that began in 1986), merged with census tract-level data. Latent variable analyses are used to assess the relationship between self-reported health and three latent constructs: concentrated neighborhood advantage (census), concentrated neighborhood disadvantage (census), and perceived neighborhood quality.

Results: Confirmatory factor analysis shows that the two census-based constructs are both inter-correlated in the expected directions with the perceived neighborhood quality construct, despite their strong negative inter-correlation with one another. In three separate structural equation models, each of the three neighborhood constructs is significantly associated with self-reported health in the expected direction. When all three neighborhood constructs are modeled simultaneously, perceived neighborhood quality has the strongest (and statistically significant) association with health, concentrated advantage has a stronger (statistically significant) association with health than does concentrated disadvantage, and the relationship between concentrated disadvantage and health is no longer statistically significant.

Conclusions: We show that census neighborhood characteristics are associated with perceived neighborhood quality measures. Moreover, we demonstrate that there are joint and separate associations between perceived neighborhood quality, census-tract socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods, and individuals self-reported health. Our results contribute to an emerging literature that distinguishes concentrated affluence from concentrated disadvantage, and highlights the additional contribution of perceived neighborhood quality to health.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the theoretical and empirical relationships between perceived neighborhood quality and census tract measures of concentrated advantage and disadvantage.
• Identify the relative contribution of perceived and census-based measures of neighborhood conditions on individual health.
• Discuss the implications for epidemiological research of deriving latent measures of neighborhood conditions from individual perceptions and from census data.

Keywords: Measuring Social Inequality, Health Disparities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation