Healthy habitats and gentrification in New York City (1990 to present)

Public health, as well as housing and community development, practitioners and policy makers have long recognized that where we live matters for our health. The urban habitat, defined as the natural, built, social and cultural environments of an individual or population where they live out their daily lives, shapes our living patterns and influences health and quality of life. As communities change due to processes of gentrification, urban habitats and their health-related features consequently change. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey and other publicly available datasets, this research (1) identifies characteristics of the urban habitat (i.e., housing and neighborhood context) which plausibly influence health; (2) constructs a healthy habitat index to classify the health of the habitat; (3) reveals how characteristics of the habitat related to gentrification have changed in New York City neighborhoods since 1990; and (4) describes habitat and gentrification-related changes in health inequalities and other health indicators and outcomes. Results displayed both quantitatively and spatially paint a comprehensive picture of how the contextual effects of the habitat influence the health of residents, entire communities and vulnerable subpopulations, highlighting the intersection between social justice and public health from a methodological perspective. Findings directly address measurable and targetable health-related features of housing and neighborhood, place-based health outcomes and consequences of urban development and neighborhood change.