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Abstract
The socioeconomic status (SES) of a neighborhood has been repeatedly shown to have an effect on individual health, even after accounting for individual-level SES and health-related behaviors. The mechanisms explaining why neighborhoods matter for individual health, however, are still debated. One hypotheses is that the quality of interaction between neighbors and engagement in collective action on behalf of community members are the underlying factors that affect the relationship between neighborhood SES and health.
This dissertation examined the relationships between neighborhood SES and neighborhood-level social processes in two unique, population-based neighborhood stratified samples in Chicago and Los Angeles. This study utilized data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Sampson and colleagues' (1997, 1999) measures of neighborhood structural characteristics (e.g., concentration disadvantage) and scales of neighborhood social processes (i.e., social cohesion, intergenerational closure, reciprocated exchange, and child-centered informal social control) were recreated and compared in these two distinct settings to examine for contextual differences in their associations. The second part of this dissertation used the results from this cross-contextual comparison to examine whether neighborhood social processes affect the relationship between neighborhood SES and child and adolescent health and behavioral problems in the Los Angeles sample. Multilevel models were employed that took advantage of the individual and neighborhood samples from each data source.
Results demonstrated that many of the associations between the neighborhood structural characteristics and neighborhood social process measures were complex and varied when comparing Chicago and Los Angeles samples. Among the concentrated affluence indicators, the proportion of executive or professional residents in the neighborhood was positively associated with neighborhood social processes in Chicago, with negative associations in Los Angeles. Percent of Latino residents was negatively associated with all four social process measures in Los Angeles, but positively associated with intergenerational closure and negatively associated with child-centered social control in Chicago. Percent of foreign-born residents appeared to exert no influence on social processes in Los Angeles, while it was negatively associated with expectations for child-centered social control in Chicago. Similarly, residential stability was positively associated with all social process indicators but social cohesion in Chicago, although it was negatively associated with child-centered social control and reciprocated exchange in Los Angeles. Population density and indicators of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage (i.e., percent of residents living in poverty, percent of residents on unemployment, and percent of black residents) were negatively associated with social interactions in both regions.
Analyses examining the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics on child health and well-being in Los Angeles revealed only a singular significant effect of percent Latino residents in a neighborhood on child health status. Levels of neighborhood social processes did not affect this relationship.
