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Evidence Base Home » Neighborhoods » Neighborhood-level socioeconomic status SES affects health through various social and economic community-level conditions including employment opportunities social capital and collective efficacy

• The association between neighborhood deterioration and well-being (stress and depressive symptoms) may be mediated through social contact with neighbors, trust of neighbors, and perceptions of crime. Neighborhood deterioration increases stress and depressive symptoms through decreased contact with one’s neighbors and increased concerns with safety.
  
  

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  Kruger DJ, Reischl TM, Gee GC. 2007. Neighborhood social conditions mediate the association between physical deterioration and mental health. American Journal of Community Psychology 40 (3-4):261-271.

• The effect of neighborhood impoverishment on self-rated health is mediated by social and physical neighborhood characteristics, such as lower social capital, higher degrees of social and physical disorder, and higher degrees of fear of crime and racism. Consistently with the literature, social capital, measured by trust and norms of reciprocity was associated negatively with impoverishment and positively with self-rated health.
  
  

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  Franzini L, Caughy M, Spears W, Esquer MEF. 2005. Neighborhood economic conditions, social processes, and self-rated health in low-income neighborhoods in Texas: A multilevel latent variables model. Social Science & Medicine 61 (6):1135-1150.

• Neighborhood disadvantage manifested its effect via lower neighborhood cohesion, which was associated with maternal depression and family dysfunction. These processes were, in turn, related to less consistent, less stimulating, and more punitive parenting behaviors, and ultimately, poorer child outcomes.
  
  

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  Kohen DE, Dahinten VS, Leventhal T, McIntosh CN. 2008. Neighborhood disadvantage: pathways of effects for young children. Child Development 79 (1):156-169.

• In-depth interviews conducted in Baltimore revealed that employment opportunities, local businesses, trash management, vacant housing, and street lighting were perceived as important neighborhood factors influencing young people's experiences including violence.
  
  

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  Yonas MA, O'Campo P, Burke JG, Gielen AC. 2007. Neighborhood-level factors and youth violence: Giving voice to the perceptions of prominent neighborhood individuals. Health Education & Behavior 34 (4):669-685.

• Association of concentrated disadvantage and violence is largely mediated by low level of collective efficacy.
  
  

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  Sampson RJ, Raudenbush SW, Earls F. 1997. Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. SCIENCE 277(5328): 918-924.

• Neighborhood collective efficacy and organizational participation were associated with better mental health, after accounting for neighborhood concentrated disadvantage. Collective efficacy mediated the effect of concentrated disadvantage.
  
  

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  Xue YG, Leventhal T, Brooks-Gunn J, Earls FJ. 2005. Neighborhood residence and mental health problems of 5-to 11-year-olds. Archives Of General Psychiatry 62 (5):554-563.

• Neighborhood social capital forms—social support, social leverage, informal social control, and neighborhood organization participation—were directly associated with both positive and negative health outcomes in adults.
  
  

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  Carpiano RM. 2007. Neighborhood social capital and adult health: An empirical test of a Bourdieu-based model. HEALTH & PLACE 13 (3):639-655.