Impacts of Homeownership and Residential Stability on Children’s Academic Performance in Hong Kong

While purchasing a home is usually made by the parents, the impact of homeownership on children, especially younger children who spend much more time in the home environment than other members of the family, should not be overlooked. In this paper, we assess the impact of both homeownership and residential stability by measuring how these factors affect children’s academic performance at school. Based on a three-stage six-model analytical framework, the analysis shows that homeownership has a positive impact on school performance of children. More interestingly, frequent moving is detrimental to school performance while parents’ higher educational background may compensate for the lack of homeownership in renter families. This paper presents a number of issues for consideration of long term land and housing policies including the importance of promoting homeownership through steady supply of residential land, as well as targeting public housing welfare to different household groups with different measures.     

Neighborhood and social environmental influences on child chronic disease prevalence

We investigate how distinct residential environments uniquely influence chronic child disease prevalence. Aggregating over 200,000 pediatric geocoded medical records to the census tract of residence and linking them to neighborhood-level measures, we use multiple data analysis techniques to assess how heterogeneous exposures of social and environmental neighborhood conditions influence an index of child chronic disease (CCD) prevalence for the neighborhood. We find there is a graded relationship between degree of overall neighborhood disadvantage and children’s chronic disease such that the highest neighborhood CCD scores are found in communities with the highest concentrated disadvantage. After considering individual- and family-level characteristics, results show that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and air pollution exposure associate with higher risks of children having at least one chronic condition. Overall, our analysis serves as a comprehensive start for future researchers interested in assessing which neighborhood factors matter most for child chronic health conditions.     

Effects of Cooking Smoke and Environmental Tobacco Smoke on Acute Respiratory Infections in Young Indian Children

Background Reliance on biomass for cooking and heating exposes many women and young children in developing countries to high levels of air pollution indoors. Environmental tobacco smoke also contributes to this indoor air pollution. This study estimates the effects of these sources of air pollution on acute respiratory infections (ARI) in children below 36 months of age in India.Methods The analysis is based on 29,768 children age 0–35 months included in India’s 1998–1999 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2). Logistic regression is used to estimate effects.Results In NFHS-2, children living in households using only biomass fuels for cooking or heating are almost twice as likely to have suffered from ARI during the 2 weeks before interview as children in households using cleaner fuels (OR = 1.82; 95% CI: 1.58, 2.09). This effect is somewhat reduced when exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and a number of other factors are statistically controlled (OR = 1.58; 95% CI: 1.28, 1.95). With these other variables controlled, children in households using a mix of biomass and cleaner fuels also have a higher risk of ARI than children in households using only cleaner fuels (OR = 1.41; 95% CI: 1.17, 1.70). With controls, the effect of biomass fuel use on ARI is stronger for boys (OR = 1.68; 95% CI: 1.26, 2.23) than for girls (OR = 1.49; 95% CI: 1.11, 2.01). The effect of ETS on ARI is also positive and significant, but smaller when other variables (including type of cooking fuel) are controlled (OR = 1.12; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.23). No modifying effects of cooking smoke and ETS are observed.Conclusions Findings support previous research showing positive effects of cooking smoke and ETS on ARI in young children. The relationship needs to be further investigated using more direct measures of smoke exposure and measures of outcome that are more specific to acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI), which are the most important component of overall ARI from a public health standpoint.Medical subject headings (MeSH) air pollution; indoor; biomass; smoke; environmental tobacco smoke; respiratory tract infections; child; India.Please address Correspondence to Vinod Mishra, DHR Division, ORC Macro, 11785 Beltsville Drive, Calverton, MD 20705, USA; e-mail: Vinod.Mishra@orcmacro.com     

Family structure,residential mobility,and school dropout: A research note

This paper examines the hypothesis that high levels of residential mobility among nonintact families account for part of the well-known association between living in a nonintact family and dropping out of high school. Children from single-parent families and stepfamilies are more likely than children from two-parent families to move during the school year. As much as 30% of the difference in the risk of dropping out between children from stepfamilies and children from intact families can be explained by differences in residential mobility. Previously, mechanisms explaining school failure on the part of children in nonintact families were more plausible for children in single-parent families than for children in stepfamilies; high levels of residential mobility apply to both groups of children. In addition, residential mobility lends itself to manipulation by public policy, with potentially remedial effects for vulnerable children. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1990 meetings of the American Sociological Association, held in Washington DC, and at the 1991 meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society held in Providence. We are grateful to Andrew Cherlin, Melvin Kohn, Gary Sandefur, and several anonymous referees for their valuable comments, to Robert Davis for his computational assistance, and to Tobey H. Sohn and Teresa A. Withers for secretarial help. Support to the senior author was provided by the National Institute on Aging under Grant HD 19375-03 and by the W.T. Grant Faculty Scholars Award. Support for computing facilities was provided by a grant to the Hopkins Population Center (PD30 H006268-19). 1994 Population Association of America     

Intergenerational Neighborhood Attainment and the Legacy of Racial Residential Segregation: A Causal Mediation Analysis

Advances in mediation analysis are used to examine the legacy effects of racial residential segregation in the United States on neighborhood attainments across two familial generations. The legacy effects of segregation are anticipated to operate through two primary pathways: a neighborhood effects pathway and an urban continuity pathway. The neighborhood effects pathway explains why parent’s exposure to racial residential segregation during their family-rearing years can influence the residential outcomes of their children later in life. The urban continuity pathway captures the temporal consistency of the built and topographical environment in providing similar residential opportunities across generations. Findings from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and U.S. Census data indicate that the legacy effect of racial residential segregation among black families operates primarily through the neighborhood effects that influence children growing up. For white families, there is less support for the legacy effects of segregation. The findings are supported by a comprehensive mediation analysis that provides a formal sensitivity analysis, deploys an instrumental variable, and assesses effect heterogeneity. Knowledge of the legacy of segregation moves neighborhood attainment research beyond point-in-time studies of racial residential segregation to provide a deeper understanding into the ways stratified residential environments are reproduced.     

Coastal settlement patterns and exposure to sea-level rise in the Jaffna Peninsula,Sri Lanka

The Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka has a generally flat topography with a median elevation of 2.72 m, and thus faces a high risk from sea-level rise that has the potential to have adverse impacts on the livelihoods of coastal communities. Understanding these risks and identifying the regions that could be adversely impacted is critical for planning future settlements and developing preventative protocols where possible. The aim of this study was to analyze the exposure of coastal settlements of the Jaffna Peninsula to climate risks, particularly to sea-level rise, and to identify the areas that are likely to be impacted under different sea-level rise scenarios. Raster-based sea-level rise modeling was performed with a digital elevation model produced with topographic contours and spot heights. The spatial distribution of individual residential houses for the entire Jaffna Peninsula was obtained through manual digitization using virtual globe platforms and high-resolution satellite images, and the houses exposed to inundation under various Representative Concentration Pathways from 2025 to 2100 were identified. The results showed that a majority (55.5%) of the residential buildings in the Jaffna Peninsula are located within 3 m above sea level. Approximately 5554 (5.6%) of the houses were projected to be inundated by 2100, and this projection increased to approximately 25,074 (25.4%) under high tide scenarios. This study highlights the coastal communities with a high level of exposure to coastal inundation where adaptation planning is essential. These results provide insights for coastal managers and policy makers for future planning of new settlements and urban expansion.

     

Environmental Hazards,Migration, and Race

This study contributes to our understanding of the association between internal migration patterns and environmentally hazardous facilities, with a focus upon race-specific outmigration at the county-level, nationwide. Among research suggesting inequalities with regard to the social distribution of environmental risk, selective migration is often implied to be a key dynamic leading to differential exposure to proximate environmental hazards. Nonetheless, the models presented here provide no evidence of differential migratory response by race to environmentally hazardous facilities, net of a wide array of socioeconomic controls for labor force opportunity, climate, and demographic structure. Future research should consider these associations at more precise geographies and/or at the individual level.     

Duration and Timing of Exposure to Neighborhood Poverty and the Risk of Adolescent Parenthood

Theory suggests that the impact of neighborhood poverty depends on both the duration and timing of exposure. Previous research, however, has not properly analyzed the sequence of neighborhoods to which children are exposed throughout the early life course. This study investigates the effects of different longitudinal patterns of exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods on the risk of adolescent parenthood. It follows a cohort of children in the PSID from age 4 to 19 and uses novel methods for time-varying exposures that overcome critical limitations of conventional regression when selection processes are dynamic. Results indicate that sustained exposure to poor neighborhoods substantially increases the risk of becoming a teen parent and that exposure to neighborhood poverty during adolescence may be more consequential than exposure earlier during childhood.     

Effect of an Accessibility Measure in a Model for Choice of Residential Location,Workplace, and Type of Employment

A three-level nested logit model for the choice of residential location, workplace, and type of employment is used to assess the effect of an individual-specific measure of accessibility to employments that takes into account the attractiveness of different occupations when the choice of workplace is anticipated in the decision of residential location. The model allows for variation in the preferences for types of employment across individuals and accounts for individual heterogeneity of preferences at each choice level in education, age, gender, and children. Using data from the Île-de-France region, the model shows that the individual-specific accessibility measure is an important determinant of the choice of residential location and its effect differs along the life cycle. The attractiveness of the types of employment is a better predictor of the workplace location than the usual total number of employments.     

Mortality in late nineteenth-century Montreal: geographic pathways of contagion

In the City of Montreal, 1881, the presence of three cultural communities with different profiles of economic status makes it possible to observe the way social settings affected survival over a lifetime. Regression models show culturally determined maternal factors dominant for infants, and persistent throughout childhood. For post-neonates, children aged 1-4, and adults aged 15-59 household poverty has a comparable effect. Among adults, a gender penalty differs among the three communities. Models are improved when differentiated by cause of death. Locating households using a GIS reveals high levels of residential segregation by ethnicity and income, spatial correlation of environmental hazards, and constraints on exit from zones of risk, which together produce neighbourhood effects as large as household effects. Attention to groups excluded (foundlings and inmates of institutions) confirms that models limited to full household-level information significantly underestimate the impacts of poverty and exclusion.     

Residential Mobility Across Early Childhood and Children’s Kindergarten Readiness

Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing family, school, and neighborhood influences on child well-being. We examined the consequences of residential mobility for socioemotional and cognitive kindergarten readiness using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, a nationally representative longitudinal survey that followed U.S. children born in 2001 from infancy to kindergarten. We described individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0–5. Our residential mobility indicators examined frequency of moves, nonlinearities in move frequency, quality of moves, comparisons between moving houses and moving neighborhoods, and heterogeneity in the consequences of residential mobility. Nearly three-quarters of children moved by kindergarten start. Mobility did not predict cognitive scores. More moves, particularly at relatively high frequencies, predicted lower kindergarten behavior scores. Moves from socioeconomically advantaged to disadvantaged neighborhoods were especially problematic, whereas moves within a ZIP code were not. The implications of moves were similar across socioeconomic status. The behavior findings largely support an instability perspective that highlights potential disruptions from frequent or problematic moves. Our study contributes to literature emphasizing the importance of contextualizing residential mobility. The high prevalence and distinct implications of early childhood moves support the need for further research.     

The Unequal Consequences of Mass Incarceration for Children

A growing literature has documented the mostly deleterious intergenerational consequences of paternal incarceration, but less research has considered heterogeneity in these relationships. In this article, I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,065) to estimate the heterogeneous relationship between paternal incarceration and children’s problem behaviors (internalizing behaviors, externalizing behaviors, and early juvenile delinquency) and cognitive skills (reading comprehension, math comprehension, and verbal ability) in middle childhood. Taking into account children’s risk of experiencing paternal incarceration, measured by the social contexts in which children are embedded (e.g., father’s residential status, poverty, neighborhood disadvantage) reveals that the consequences—across all outcomes except early juvenile delinquency—are more deleterious for children with relatively low risks of exposure to paternal incarceration than for children with relatively high risks of exposure to paternal incarceration. These findings suggest that the intergenerational consequences of paternal incarceration are more complicated than documented in previous research and, more generally, suggest that research on family inequality consider both differential selection into treatments and differential responses to treatments.     

Australian and New Zealand Indigenous mothers’ report respect for smoking bans in homes

BackgroundThere is limited data about the reasons behind residential rules to reduce environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure or the establishment or enforcement of such rules in Indigenous populations.AimWe aimed to gain an understanding of smokefree rules around Australian and New Zealand (NZ) Indigenous infants.MethodThis was a qualitative study nested within a randomised controlled trial that aimed to test the efficacy of a family-centred tobacco control programme about environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) to improve the respiratory health of Indigenous infants in Australia and New Zealand. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 Indigenous mothers of infants in Australia (n = 7) and NZ (n = 19). We asked about the presence of smokefree rules, who set the rules, how the rules were set and enforced, and presence of smokefree rules in participants’ wider social circle. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and inductively analysed to identify key themes.FindingsSixty-nine percent of mothers had partners, 77% smoked and all reported some presence of smokefree rules for house and car. Three main themes were identified: strategies to minimise exposure to ETS, establishing smokefree rules in homes and cars, and, adherence and enforcement of smokefree rules. Several strategies were identified to limit children's exposure to ETS, including rules to limit exposure to third-hand smoke. Mothers extended their smokefree rules to apply to other people's houses or cars, and reported that their family and social circles also had smokefree rules. The main reason for having smokefree rules was for the health of their children. Rules were most commonly set by the mother, often jointly with their partner. Few mothers reported challenges or problems with other people adhering to the smokefree rules.ConclusionWomen tried very hard to, and believed that they were effective in, protecting their children from the harmful effects of ETS exposure. In this context, health professionals need to emphasise smoking cessation in parents, so that children are maximally protected from ETS exposure.     

Orphans and schooling in africa: a longitudinal analysis

AIDS deaths could have a major impact on economic development by affecting the human capital accumulation of the next generation. We estimate the impact of parent death on primary school participation using an unusual five-year panel data set of over 20,000 Kenyan children. There is a substantial decrease in school participation following a parent death and a smaller drop before the death (presumably due to pre-death morbidity). Estimated impacts are smaller in specifications without individual fixed effects, suggesting that estimates based on cross-sectional data are biased toward zero. Effects are largest for children whose mothers died and, in a novel finding, for those with low baseline academic performance.     

Spatial Sampling Design for a Demographic and Health Survey

The recent advances in global position systems (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing (RS) can be exploited for spatial sampling design for demographic and health surveys. These technologies are particularly useful when a sampling frame is unavailable and/or location (of household) is important for data collection (e.g., location of residence might greatly impact exposure to ambient air pollution among members of a population). Building on these technologies, this article presents a methodology of spatial sampling adopted for the respiratory health and demographic survey conducted in Delhi and its environs from January through April 2004. The overall goal of the survey was to select households that adequately represented exposure to ambient air pollution. The proposed methodology involved constructing a sampling frame of residential areas and the simulation of weighted random points within residential areas. The simulated locations were navigated with the aid of GPS to identify households at these locations and to acquire residents’ consent to participate in the survey; a total of 1,576 households at the 2,000 simulated locations were found suitable and participated in the survey. The average ambient air pollution at the sample sites was not significantly different from the average air pollution observed in the study area, which demonstrates the robustness of the proposed sampling method.     

The burden of carcinogenic air toxics among Asian Americans in four US metro areas

Population and Environment - This study investigated disparities in residential exposure to carcinogenic air pollutants among Asian Americans, including Asian ancestry subgroups, in four US metro...     

The Effect of Prenatal Natural Disaster Exposure on School Outcomes

This study looks at the impact of exposure to natural disasters during pregnancy on the educational outcomes of North Carolina children at the third grade level. A broad literature relates negative birth outcomes to poor educational performance, and a number of recent studies have examined the effect of prenatal exposure to natural disasters on birth outcomes. This study takes the next step by considering how prenatal exposure affects later outcomes. Combining North Carolina administrative data on births and school performance with disaster declarations from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allows for the identification of children who were exposed to disasters during prenatal development. These children are compared with other children born in the same county who were not exposed to disasters while in utero. Regression results suggest that children exposed to hurricanes prenatally have lower scores on third grade standardized tests in math and reading. Those exposed to flooding or tornadoes also have somewhat lower math scores. Additionally, results suggest that these negative effects are more concentrated among children in disadvantaged subgroups, especially children born to black mothers. However, no evidence exists that these effects are mediated by common measures of birth outcomes, including birth weight and gestational age.     

Resolved Parental Infertility and Children’s Educational Achievement

Although difficulty conceiving a child has long been a major medical and social preoccupation, it has not been considered as a predictor of long-term outcomes in children ultimately conceived. This is consistent with a broader gap in knowledge regarding the consequences of parental health for educational performance in offspring. Here we address that omission, asking how resolved parental infertility relates to children’s academic achievement. In a sample of all Swedish births between 1988 and 1995, we find that involuntary childlessness prior to either a first or a second birth is associated with lower academic achievement (both test scores and GPA) in children at age 16, even if the period of infertility was prior to a sibling’s birth rather than the child’s own. Our results support a conceptualization of infertility as a cumulative physical and social experience with effects extending well beyond the point at which a child is born, and emphasize the need to better understand how specific parental health conditions constrain children’s educational outcomes.     

By all measures: an examination of the relationship between segregation and health risk from air pollution

A great deal of evidence suggests that African-Americans in more racially segregated communities are at a higher risk for a variety of health problems. Scholars have argued that these health inequalities might be explained by racial differences in exposure to air toxins. However, there are a number of ways to measure segregation, each representing different pathways of exposure. There has yet to be a systematic evaluation of how exposure to air toxins varies by these different measures, making it difficult to begin to theorize about the causal story linking segregation, pollution and health. This paper addresses this gap by examining how the health risk from industrial toxins varies by the 19 most commonly used segregation measures. Results show that, with the exception of two segregation measures, living in metro areas with relatively higher segregation levels, is associated with significantly greater health risk from industrial air toxins for all racial groups. Moreover, African-Americans in more segregated metro areas typically experience an added risk of exposure compared to non-Hispanic whites.