Cover: Neighborhood Effects on Health

Neighborhood Effects on Health

Concentrated Advantage and Disadvantage

Published in: Health & Place, v. 16, no. 5, Sep. 2010, p. 1058-1060

Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2010

by Brian Karl Finch, D. Phuong Do, Melonie Heron, Chloe E. Bird, Teresa E. Seeman, Nicole Lurie

We investigate an alternative conceptualization of neighborhood context and its association with health. Using an index that measures a continuum of concentrated advantage and disadvantage, we examine whether the relationship between neighborhood conditions and health varies by socio-economic status. Using NHANES III data geocoded to census tracts, we find that while largely uneducated neighborhoods are universally deleterious, individuals with more education benefit from living in highly educated neighborhoods to a greater degree than individuals with lower levels of education.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.