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

Abstract #107361

Malcolm Cutchin, PhD, Occupational Therapy, University of Texas Medical Branch, 3.702 School of Allied Health Sciences, Galveston, TX 77555-1142, (409)747-1627, mpcutchi@utmb.edu and Jim Stimpson, PhD, Sealy Center on Aging, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Blvd., Galveston, TX 77555-0460.

The concept of neighborhoods has become important within social epidemiology and other fields of inquiry that place emphasis on contextual influences on health. For the most part, however, the concept remains taken-for-granted. At the most basic level, a neighborhood is a geographic area whose aspects as a whole may have a direct or indirect role in determining health outcomes. Neighborhoods are also areas of significant social relations and attachment. Yet the nature of neighborhoods has not been well theorized, nor has a method of creating neighborhoods for empirical analysis been well developed. In practice, census tracts have been used most commonly to represent neighborhoods. Through this paper, we suggest why this practice is problematic for health studies that consider neighborhoods an important possible causal factor in health. Using a more developed theorization of the socio-geographical basis of neighborhoods, we argue that they may be constructed as units of analysis that correspond more closely with contextual influences on health. We take an ongoing social epidemiology study in Texas City, TX as an example of how this may be done. We review the construction of neighborhoods, using GIS, remote imagery, and principles from geography and sociology, for the examination of stress and health relationships. Moreover, we discuss ways in which we will put the methodology to test with later analyses. We conclude with an evaluation of the significance of such an approach for the study of neighborhoods and health.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the role and character of neighborhoods as units of analysis in health studies; Recognize some problems with the way the concept of neighborhoods is used in current research; Analyze geographic and social data to construct neighborhoods for analysis; and Evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of such an approach to neighborhood construction and use.

Keywords: Methodology, Epidemiology

Related Web page: www.catchum.utmb.edu/CPHHD/project2.htm

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