Cumulative housing cost burden exposures and disadvantages to children's well-being and health.

Housing affordability is a growing challenge for households in the United States and other developed countries. Prolonged exposure to housing cost burden can have damaging effects on households, and, in particular, children. These burdens can exacerbate parental stress, reduce investments in children and expose households to greater neighborhood disadvantage. In this study, we use national survey data to assess whether cumulative housing cost burden exposure is associated with disadvantages to children's well-being and health. We observe that long-term exposures are linked to lower achievement in math and reading standardized test scores, as well as higher levels of behavior problems. Moreover, we identify that three mechanisms--caregiver distress, economic strain, and neighborhood disadvantage--operate as mediating pathways for these disadvantages to different degrees between these three outcomes. Overall, our study highlights how the dimension of time is increasingly important to our understanding of the challenges that families face related to housing affordability.

Gentrification Yields Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Exposure To Contextual Determinants Of Health.

This article examines racial and ethnic disparities in the relationship between gentrification and exposure to contextual determinants of health. In our study, we focused on changes in selected contextual determinants of health (health care access, social deprivation, air pollution, and walkability) and life expectancy during the period 2006-21 among residents of gentrifying census tracts in six large US cities that have experienced different gentrification patterns and have different levels of segregation: Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; San Francisco, California; and Seattle, Washington. We found that gentrification was associated with overall improvements in the likelihood of living in Medically Underserved Areas across racial and ethnic groups, but it was also associated with increased social deprivation and reduced life expectancy among Black people, Hispanic people, and people of another or undetermined race or ethnicity. In contrast, we found that gentrification was related to better (or unchanged) contextual determinants of health for Asian people and White people. Our findings can inform policies that target communities identified to be particularly at risk for worsening contextual determinants of health as a result of gentrification.

Effects of Prolonged Exposure to Air Pollution and Neighborhood Disadvantage on Self-Rated Health among Adults in the United States: Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.

BACKGROUND: Although overall air quality has improved in the United States, air pollution remains unevenly distributed across neighborhoods, producing disproportionate environmental burdens for minoritized and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents for whom greater exposure to other structurally rooted neighborhood stressors is also more frequent. These interrelated dynamics and layered vulnerabilities each have well-documented associations with physical and psychological health outcomes; however, much remains unknown about the joint effects of environmental hazards and neighborhood socioeconomic factors on self-reported health status. OBJECTIVES: We examined the nexus of air pollution exposure, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, and self-rated health (SRH) among adults in the United States. METHODS: This observational study used individual-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics merged with contextual information, including neighborhood socioeconomic and air pollution data at the census tract and census block levels, spanning the period of 1999-2015. We estimated ordinary least squares regression models predicting SRH by 10-y average exposures to fine particulate matter [particles ≤2.5µm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5)] and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage while controlling for individual-level correlates of health. We also investigated the interaction effects of air pollution and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on SRH. RESULTS: On average, respondents in our sample rated their health as 3.41 on a scale of 1 to 5. Respondents in neighborhoods with higher 10-y average PM2.5 concentrations or socioeconomic disadvantage rated their health more negatively after controlling for covariates [ß=-0.024 (95% CI: -0.034, -0.014); ß=-0.107 (95% CI: -0.163, -0.052), respectively]. We also found that the deleterious associations of PM2.5 exposure with SRH were weaker in the context of greater neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage (ß=0.007; 95% CI: 0.002, 0.011). DISCUSSION: Study results indicate that the effects of air pollution on SRH may be less salient in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods compared with more advantaged areas, perhaps owing to the presence of other more proximate structurally rooted health risks and vulnerabilities in disinvested areas (e.g., lack of economic resources, health access, healthy food options). This intersection may further underscore the importance of meaningful involvement and political power building among community stakeholders on issues concerning the nexus of environmental and socioeconomic justice, particularly in structurally marginalized communities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11268.

Gentrification, Mobility, and Exposure to Contextual Social Determinants of Health.

This study uses individual level consumer trace data for 2006 residents of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods for the principal cities of the 100 largest metropolitan regions in the US using their location in 2006 and 2019 to examine exposure to the following four cSDOH: healthcare access (Medically Underserved Areas), socioeconomic condition (Area Deprivation Index), air pollution (NO2, PM 2.5 and PM10), and walkability (National Walkability Index). The results control for individual characteristics and initial neighborhood conditions. Residents of neighborhoods classified as gentrifying were exposed to more favorable cSDOH as of 2006 relative to residents of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods that were not gentrifying in terms of likelihood to be in a MUA, and level of local deprivation and walkability while experiencing similar level of air pollution. As a result of changes in neighborhood characteristics and differential mobility pattern, between 2006 and 2019, individuals who originally lived in gentrifying neighborhoods experienced worse changes in MUAs, ADI, and Walkability Index but a greater improvement in exposure to air pollutants. The negative changes are driven by movers, while stayers actually experience a relative improvement in MUAs and ADI and larger improvements in exposure to air pollutants. The findings indicate that gentrification may contribute to health disparities through changes in exposure to cSDOH through mobility to communities with worse cSDOH among residents of gentrifying neighborhoods although results in terms of exposure to health pollutants are mixed.

Racial disparity in exposure to housing cost burden in the United States: 1980-2017.

This paper uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to analyze Black-White differences in housing cost burden exposure among renter households in the United States from 1980 to 2017, expanding understanding of this phenomenon in two respects. Specifically, we document how much this racial disparity changed among renters over almost four decades and identify how much factors associated with income or housing costs explain Black-White inequality in exposure to housing cost burden. For White households, the net contribution of household, neighborhood, and metropolitan covariates accounts for much of the change in the probability of housing cost burden over time. For Black households, however, the probability of experiencing housing cost burden continued to rise throughout the period of this study, even after controlling for household, neighborhood, and metropolitan covariates. This suggests that unobserved variables like racial discrimination, social networks or employment quality might explain the increasing disparity in cost burden among for Black and White households in the U.S.

Kin location and racial disparities in exiting and entering poor neighborhoods.

Blacks and Latinos/as are less likely than Whites to move from a poor neighborhood to a non-poor neighborhood and are more likely to move in the reverse direction. Using individual-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1980-2013) and neighborhood-level census data, this study explores the role that the spatial location of familial kin networks plays in explaining these racially and ethnically disparate mobility patterns. Blacks and Latinos/as live closer than Whites to nuclear kin, and they are also more likely than Whites to have kin members living in poor neighborhoods. Close geographic proximity to kin and higher levels of kin neighborhood poverty inhibit moving from a poor to a non-poor neighborhood, and increase the risk of moving from a non-poor to a poor tract. Racial/ethnic differences in kin proximity and kin neighborhood poverty explain a substantial portion of racial gaps in exiting and entering poor neighborhoods.

Does Hypersegregation Matter for Black-White Socioeconomic Disparities?

Massey and Denton's concept of hypersegregation describes how multiple and distinct forms of black-white segregation lead to high levels of black-white stratification. However, numerous studies assessing the association between segregation and racial stratification applied only one or two dimensions of segregation, neglecting how multiple forms of segregation combine to potentially exacerbate socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites. We address this by using data from the U.S. Census from 1980 to 2010 and data from the American Community Survey from 2012 to 2016 to assess trajectories for black-white disparities in educational attainment, employment, and neighborhood poverty between metropolitan areas with hypersegregation and black-white segregation, as measured by the dissimilarity index. Using a time-varying measure of segregation types, our results indicate that in some cases, hypersegregated metropolitan areas have been associated with larger black-white socioeconomic disparities beyond those found in metropolitan areas that are highly segregated in terms of dissimilarity but are not hypersegregated. However, the contrasts in black-white socioeconomic inequality between hypersegregated metropolitan areas and those with high segregation largely diminish by the 2012 to 2016 observation.

Residential Segregation and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Ambient Air Pollution.

Race and ethnicity are consequential constructs when it comes to exposure to air pollution. Persistent environmental racial/ethnic inequalities call for attention to identifying the factors that maintain them. We examined associations between racial residential segregation and racial/ethnic inequalities in exposure to three types of air pollutants. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1990-2011), the U.S. Census (1990- 2010), and the Environmental Protection Agency, we tested the independent and joint contributions of race/ethnicity and metropolitan-level residential segregation on individual levels of exposure to air pollution nationwide. We found that racial and ethnic minorities were exposed to significantly higher levels of air pollution compared to Whites. The difference between minorities and Whites in exposure to all three types of air pollution was most pronounced in metropolitan areas with high levels of residential segregation. The environmental inequities observed in this study call for public health and policy initiatives to ameliorate the sources of racial/ethnic gaps in pollution exposure. Given the links between the physical environment and health, addressing such uneven environmental burdens may be a promising way to improve population health and decrease racial/ethnic inequalities therein.

Early-Life Air Pollution Exposure, Neighborhood Poverty, and Childhood Asthma in the United States, 1990⁻2014.

Ambient air pollution is a well-known risk factor of various asthma-related outcomes, however, past research has often focused on acute exacerbations rather than asthma development. This study draws on a population-based, multigenerational panel dataset from the United States to assess the association of childhood asthma risk with census block-level, annual-average air pollution exposure measured during the prenatal and early postnatal periods, as well as effect modification by neighborhood poverty. Findings suggest that early-life exposures to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a marker of traffic-related pollution, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a mixture of industrial and other pollutants, are positively associated with subsequent childhood asthma diagnosis (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.10⁻1.41 and OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.06⁻1.46, respectively, per interquartile range (IQR) increase in each pollutant (NO2 IQR = 8.51 ppb and PM2.5 IQR = 4.43 µ/m³)). These effects are modified by early-life neighborhood poverty exposure, with no or weaker effects in moderate- and low- (versus high-) poverty areas. This work underscores the importance of a holistic, developmental approach to elucidating the interplay of social and environmental contexts that may create conditions for racial-ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in childhood asthma risk.

Influence of Proximity to Kin on Residential Mobility and Destination Choice: Examining Local Movers in Metropolitan Areas.

A growing body of research has examined how family dynamics shape residential mobility, highlighting the social-as opposed to economic-drivers of mobility. However, few studies have examined kin ties as both push and pull factors in mobility processes or revealed how the influence of kin ties on mobility varies across sociodemographic groups. Using data on local residential moves from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1980 to 2013, we find that location of noncoresident kin influences the likelihood of moving out of the current neighborhood and the selection of a new destination neighborhood. Analyses of out-mobility reveal that parents and young adult children living near each other as well as low-income adult children living near parents are especially deterred from moving. Discrete-choice models of neighborhood selection indicate that movers are particularly drawn to neighborhoods close to aging parents, white and higher-income households tend to move close to parents and children, and lower-income households tend to move close to extended family. Our results highlight the social and economic trade-offs that households face when making residential mobility decisions, which have important implications for broader patterns of inequality in residential attainment.

Family Structure, Residential Mobility, and Environmental Inequality.

This study combines micro-level data on families with children from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with neighborhood-level industrial hazard data from the Environmental Protection Agency and neighborhood-level U.S. census data to examine both the association between family structure and residential proximity to neighborhood pollution and the micro-level, residential mobility processes that contribute to differential pollution proximity across family types. Results indicate the existence of significant family structure differences in household proximity to industrial pollution in U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 1999, with single-mother and single-father families experiencing neighborhood pollution levels that are on average 46% and 26% greater, respectively, than those experienced by two-parent families. Moreover, the pollution gap between single-mother and two-parent families persists with controls for household and neighborhood socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and race/ethnic characteristics. Examination of underlying migration patterns reveals that single-mother, single-father, and two-parent families are equally likely to move in response to pollution. However, mobile single-parent families move into neighborhoods with significantly higher pollution levels than do mobile two-parent families. Thus, family structure differences in pollution proximity are maintained more by these destination neighborhood differences than by family structure variations in the likelihood of moving out of polluted neighborhoods.

THE LONG-TERM DYNAMICS OF RACIAL/ETHNIC INEQUALITY IN NEIGHBORHOOD AIR POLLUTION EXPOSURE, 1990-2009.

Research examining racial/ethnic disparities in pollution exposure often relies on cross-sectional data. These analyses are largely insensitive to exposure trends and rarely account for broader contextual dynamics. To provide a more comprehensive assessment of racial-environmental inequality over time, we combine the 1990 to 2009 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) with spatially- and temporally-resolved measures of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) in respondents' neighborhoods, as well as census data on the characteristics of respondents' metropolitan areas. Results based on multilevel repeated measures models indicate that Blacks and Latinos are, on average, more likely to be exposed to higher levels of NO2, PM2.5, and PM10 than Whites. Despite nationwide declines in levels of pollution over time, racial and ethnic disparities persist and cannot be fully explained by individual-, household-, or metropolitan-level factors.

Native out-migration and neighborhood immigration in new destinations.

Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked to three decades of census data on immigrant settlement patterns, this study examines how the migration behaviors of native-born whites and blacks are related to local immigrant concentrations, and how this relationship varies across traditional and nontraditional metropolitan gateways. Our results indicate that regardless of gateway type, the likelihood of neighborhood out-migration among natives increases as the local immigrant population grows-an association that is not explained by sociodemographic characteristics of householders or by features of the neighborhoods and metropolitan areas in which they reside. Most importantly, we find that this tendency to move away from immigrants is pronounced for natives living in metropolitan areas that are developing into a major gateway-that is, a community that has experienced rapid recent growth in foreign-born populations. We also demonstrate that among mobile natives, the neighborhoods that they move to have substantially smaller immigrant concentrations than the ones they left, a finding that is especially evident in new gateway areas.

Extended-Family Resources and Racial Inequality in the Transition to Homeownership.

We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine how access to financial resources in the extended family affects the accumulation of wealth among non-owners and how these resources subsequently affect transitioning into homeownership. Our findings show that economic conditions of the extended family have substantial effects on non-owners' wealth accumulation and likelihood of becoming homeowners, even after adjusting for individual sociodemographic and economic characteristics. We find significant effects of extended-family wealth for both black and white households, but effects of extended-family income insufficiency for blacks only. Consequently, limited access to wealth and greater level of poverty in the extended family hamper blacks' transition to homeownership. Our results show that the level of extended-family wealth necessary for black householders to equalize their likelihood of becoming homeowners with whites is very high. In fact, our findings indicate that white householders embedded in extended families with no net wealth are just as likely to make the transition to ownership as are black householders with affluent extended families. These findings support arguments related to the importance of extended-family resources in processes of residential attainment but also point to important racial differences in not only levels but also consequences of these family resources.

Interneighborhood migration, race, and environmental hazards: modeling microlevel processes of environmental inequality.

This study combines longitudinal individual-level data with neighborhood-level industrial hazard data to examine the extent and sources of environmental inequality. Results indicate that profound racial and ethnic differences in proximity to industrial pollution persist when differences in individual education, household income, and other microlevel characteristics are controlled. Examination of underlying migration patterns further reveals that black and Latino householders move into neighborhoods with significantly higher hazard levels than do comparable whites and that racial differences in proximity to neighborhood pollution are maintained more by these disparate mobility destinations than by differential effects of pollution on the decision to move.

Race, gender, and marriage: destination selection during the Great Migration.

Using historical census microdata, we present a unique analysis of racial and gender disparities in destination selection and an exploration of hypotheses regarding tied migration in the historical context of the Great Migration. Black migrants were more likely to move to metropolitan areas and central cities throughout the period, while white migrants were more likely to locate in nonmetropolitan and farm destinations. Gender differences were largely dependent on marital status. Consistent with the "tied-migration" thesis, married women had destination outcomes that were similar to those of men, whereas single women had a greater propensity to reside in metropolitan locations where economic opportunities for women were more plentiful.