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Downward Neighborhood Poverty Mobility during Childhood Is Associated with Child Asthma: Evidence from the Geographic Research on Wellbeing (GROW) Survey

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Abstract

Causal evidence regarding neighborhood effects on health remains tenuous. Given that children have little agency in deciding where they live and spend proportionally more of their lives in neighborhoods than adults, their exposure to neighborhood conditions could make their health particularly sensitive to neighborhood effects. In this paper, we examine the relationship between exposure to poor neighborhoods from birth to ages 4–10 and childhood asthma. We used data from the 2003–2007 California Maternal Infant and Health Assessment (MIHA) and the 2012–2013 Geographic Research on Wellbeing (GROW) survey (N = 2619 mother/child dyads) to fit relative risks of asthma for children who experience different types of neighborhood poverty mobility using Poisson regression controlling for individual-level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and neighborhood satisfaction. Our results demonstrate that [1] living in a poor neighborhood at baseline and follow-up and [2] moving into a poor neighborhood were each associated with higher risk of asthma, compared with children not living in a poor neighborhood at either time. Exposure to impoverished neighborhoods and downward neighborhood poverty mobility matters for children’s health, particularly for asthma. Public health practitioners and policymakers need to address downward neighborhood economic mobility, in addition to downward family economic mobility, in order to improve children’s health.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the generouds feedback of the PRC Health Group and JUH reviews.

Preparation of this manuscript was supported through a grant from the American Cancer Society (RSGT-11-010-01-CPPB) and the Population Research Center (R24 HD42849).

Funding

Preparation of this manuscript was supported through a grant from the American Cancer Society (RSGT-11-010-01-CPPB), thePopulation Research Center (R24 HD42849 and P2CHD042849, NICHD), the Texas RCMAR ( P30AG059301-01 ) and National Instituteof Aging training grant (T32 AG000037).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 1925 San Jacinto Boulevard, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    P. Cantu, D. Powers & Catherine Cubbin

  2. Department of Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    P. Cantu & D. Powers

  3. School of Kinesiology and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Y. Kim

  4. School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    C. Sheehan

  5. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    C. E. Margerison

  6. Steve Hicks School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin, 1925 San Jacinto Boulevard, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Catherine Cubbin

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  1. P. Cantu
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Contributions

Y. Kim drafted and revised the manuscript, and analyzed and interpreted the data. P. Cantu contributed to conceptualizing the article, carried out the initial analyses, and co-drafted the manuscript. C. Sheehan and D. Powers participated in interpretation of the data and revisions of the manuscript. C. Cubbin designed and supervised the study, drafted and reviewed the manuscript, and participated in interpretation of the data. All authors approved the final article as submitted and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

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Correspondence to Catherine Cubbin.

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This research was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of California, San Francisco, and the California Department of Public Health.

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What is already known on this subject?

• Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantages are linked with children’s health, after adjusting for individual-level socioeconomic factors.

• However, most research examined neighborhood-child health associations only with cross-sectional data.

What does this study add?

• Moving from a non-poor to a poor neighborhood and living in a poor neighborhood at baseline and follow-up were each associated with higher risk of asthma compared with children not living in a poor neighborhood at baseline and follow-up.

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Appendix

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Table 5 Sensitivity analyses using PROC SURVEYLOGISTIC, Geographic Research on Wellbeing (GROW) study, CA, USA, 2012–2013, N = 2619
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Cantu, P., Kim, Y., Sheehan, C. et al. Downward Neighborhood Poverty Mobility during Childhood Is Associated with Child Asthma: Evidence from the Geographic Research on Wellbeing (GROW) Survey. J Urban Health 96, 558–569 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-019-00356-2

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