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

Abstract #121476

Mahasin S. Mujahid, MS, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, 1214 S. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, 734-615-9220, mmujahid@umich.edu and Ana Diez Roux, MD, PhD, Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan, 1214 S. University, 2nd Floor, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

Background: The majority of studies examining the relationship between residential environments and cardiovascular disease have used census derived measures of neighborhood SES. There is a need to identify specific features of neighborhoods relevant to cardiovascular disease risk. We aim to: 1) develop neighborhood scales that represent features of the neighborhood important for CVD risk and 2) assess the ecometric properties of such scales. Methods: Data on neighborhood conditions were collected from a telephone survey of 5,988 residents in Baltimore, MD; Forsyth County, NC; and New York, NY. Information was collected across seven neighborhood conditions (aesthetic quality, walking environment, availability of healthy foods, safety, violence, social cohesion, and activities with neighbors). Neighborhoods were defined as census tracts or homogenous census tract clusters. Three-level hierarchical linear models were constructed to asses the ecometric properties of the neighborhood scales. We calculated neighborhood level reliabilities and intraneighborhood correlation coefficients (ICCs). Results: Neighborhood reliabilities ranged from .76 to .88 for census clusters (excluding activities with neighbors) and were slightly lower for census tracts. Between 24-46% of the variability in our neighborhood scales (defined as census tracts) lies between neighborhoods (excluding activities with neighbors). Conclusion: The results suggest that neighborhood scales have excellent ecometric properties. However, the choice of neighborhood geographic size involves a trade-off between ICC and reliability, with smaller areas having higher ICC's and larger areas having higher reliabilities. The development of ecologic scales will improve our understanding of neighborhood conditions and their importance for cardiovascular disease risk.

Learning Objectives:

1.Develop neighborhood scales important for cardiovascular disease risk
• Assess the ecometric properties of the neighborhood scales

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.