Neighborhood residential segregation and physical health among Hispanic Americans: good, bad, or benign?

Although considerable evidence shows that residential segregation is deleterious to the health of African Americans, findings regarding segregation and health for Hispanic Americans are inconsistent. Competing hypotheses regarding the effects of neighborhood segregation on health are tested with data from Puerto Rican and Mexican American residents of Chicago. Multilevel analyses reveal that segregation is associated with more health problems for Puerto Rican Americans but not for Mexican Americans. In addition, the relationship between segregation and health was conditioned by generational status for Mexican Americans: Second- or later-generation Mexican Americans living in highly segregated neighborhoods had better health than first-generation Mexican Americans in such neighborhoods. These findings reveal that residential segregation has differential effects across Hispanic groups and suggest that a high degree of contact with Mexican Americans promotes health by facilitating flow of informal health resources and social support.     

Diversity Within Diversity

Summary

Asian American elderly form a heterogeneous group with respect to immigration history, ethnic/cultural background, socioeconomic position, and health and mental health status. This paper provides an overview of the internal heterogeneity within the Asian American elderly population and identifies those who experience multiple stressors affecting their quality of life. Then it discusses barriers to formal service utilization as well as strengths and deficits of informal support systems. To better serve Asian American elders with their multiple needs for health, mental health, and social services, increased funding is recommended for research on this group, diversification of social service programs in coethnic communities, and increased cultural competence in non-Asian social service agencies.     

Middle Class Asian American Neighborhoods: Resident and Practitioner Perceptions

Abstract

We conducted a survey of 422 Asian Indian and Korean American residents of New Jersey to determine how middle-income Asian Americans rate their neighborhood environments compared to non-Asians living in the same or similar environments, and the issues that affect their neighborhood quality ratings. In addition, we interviewed practitioners in these same communities for their perceptions of their interactions with Asian Americans. The first part examines Asian Americans' perceptions of their neighborhoods; the second part focuses on resident-practitioner interactions from the perspective of practitioners. The third part discusses results. We present suggestions to practitioners for interacting with Asian American clients on a proposed land use change.     

Social Capital and Neighborhood Poverty

ABSTRACT

Research indicates that concentrated neighborhood poverty has numerous detrimental effects on the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. The term “neighborhood effects” has been used to describe the interaction between socioeconomic disadvantage and social problems at the neighborhood level. Social capital theory, defined broadly as social networks characterized by trust and reciprocity represents one prominent explanation for the phenomenon of neighborhood effects. Within poor neighborhoods, it is theorized that socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood foster inadequate social capital and it is this low level of social capital that leads to the phenomenon of neighborhood effects. In order to explore the utility of social capital theory in explaining neighborhood effects, this paper argues for an ecologically-grounded model of social capital that allows for the different ways in which social capital operates within different types of neighborhoods. Implications for social work practice, policy and education are discussed.     

Race, ethnicity, and depression in Canadian society

This study examines racial/ethnic differences in mental health using data from the 1996-97 National Population Health Survey. Three hypotheses are tested. First, a socioeconomic hypothesis tests if differences in family income, education, and low income explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Second, a social resources hypothesis tests if differences in social support explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Finally, an interaction hypothesis tests if mental health variation stems from specific interactions of race/ethnicity with economic and social factors. Although there are socioeconomic, social resource, and interaction effects, the analysis shows that they do not fully explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Overall, our results suggest that East and Southeast Asian, Chinese, South Asian, and black Canadians have better mental health than English Canadians. Jewish Canadians have poorer mental health than English Canadians. All other racial/ethnic groupings have similar mental health as English Canadians.     

Mainstream and Ethnic Volunteering by Korean Immigrants in the United States

Asian immigrants accounted for one-eighth of the total U.S. population in 2009. With Asian immigrants having higher levels of education and income than average Americans, their potential contribution to American philanthropy will be even more significant. This study examines the volunteering patterns of Korean immigrants, one of the fastest growing segments of the Asian immigrant population in the United States. This study explains Korean immigrants’ volunteering within ethnic and mainstream (American) organizations using the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital. The bivariate probit regression results suggest that ethnic volunteering and mainstream volunteering are generally the substitutes for each other. The findings nevertheless suggest that providing Asian immigrants’ with English education and continuing education opportunities may boost their volunteering to mainstream nonprofit organizations without discouraging their volunteering for ethnic organizations.     

Trends in Asian American racial/ethnic intermarriage: a comparison of 1980 and 1990 census data

"In this paper, we use data from the 1990 [U.S.] census to compare patterns of Asian American intermarriage with those reported by Lee and Yamanaka (1990).... Our main findings show that: (i) the overall outmarriage rate has declined; (ii) Asian American inter-ethnic marriages (that is, marriages between two Asian Americans of different Asian ethnicities) have increased; and (iii) social distance, measured by an Index of Intermarriage Distance, between Asian Americans and other racial and ethnic groups has widened. We conclude by discussing some implications of the findings for the role of racial and ethnic intermarriage as an indicator of intergroup relations."     

Neighborhood structural disadvantage,collective efficacy,and self-rated physical health in an urban setting

Our analyses examine the role neighborhood structural characteristics--including concentrated disadvantage, residential instability, and immigrant concentration--as well as collective efficacy in promoting physical health among neighborhood residents. Using data from the 1990 census, the 1994 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey, and the 1991-2000 Metropolitan Chicago Information Center-Metro Survey, we model the effects of individual and neighborhood level factors on self-rated physical health employing hierarchical ordered logit models. First, we find that neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is not significantly related to self-rated physical health when individual level demographic and health background are controlled. Second, individuals residing in neighborhoods with higher levels of collective efficacy report better overall health. Finally, socioeconomic disadvantage and collective efficacy condition the positive effects of individual level education on physical health.     

Neighborhood mechanisms and the spatial dynamics of birth weight

This study addresses two questions about why neighborhood contexts matter for individuals via a multilevel, spatial analysis of birthweight for 101,662 live births within 342 Chicago neighborhoods. First, what are the mechanisms through which neighborhood structural composition is related to health? The results show that mechanisms related to stress and adaptation (violent crime, reciprocal exchange and participation in local voluntary associations) are the most robust neighborhood-level predictors of birth weight. Second, are contextual influences on health limited to the immediate neighborhood or do they extend to a wider geographic context? The results show that contextual effects on birth weight extend to the social environment beyond the immediate neighborhood, even after adjusting for potentially confounding covariates. These findings suggest that the theoretical understanding and empirical estimation of 'neighborhood effects' on health are bolstered by collecting data on more causally proximate social processes and by taking into account spatial interdependencies among neighborhoods.     

Between Spatial and Social Segregation among Immigrants: The Case of Immigrants from the FSU in Israel

Studies on immigrants' residential concentration have reported mixed findings. Some have argued that immigrants' residential concentration is a necessary step in the process of their social integration because there the newcomers find housing and employment opportunities as well as social support. As they learn the language and improve their socioeconomic status, they move to neighborhoods where they share space with the native population. Others have argued that the ethnic neighborhood delays the process of social integration in the new society because it nurtures informal ethnic social networks that provide incomplete information and retard the process of language acquisition. The study reported here investigated the effect of motivations, perceptions of attitudes of the host society, acculturation and socioeconomic factors on immigrants' residential concentration. It also sought to expand previous research by examining the relationship between immigrants'residential concentration and social relationships with nonimmigrants. Data for the study were collected in 1999 through a survey of immigrants from the FSU who had settled in one northern city in Israel after 1989. The results show a negative relationship of socioeconomic status and fluency in Hebrew with the percentage of immigrants residing in a given neighborhood. The higher the socioeconomic status and the more fluent the immigrant in Hebrew, the lower the percentage of immigrants in his or her neighborhood. Immigrants who expressed a proactive motivation for migration resided in neighborhoods with a low percentage of immigrants. Immigrants' residential concentration was not found to be related to the development of social relationships with the local population. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

PROSPERITY,IMMIGRATION, AND NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE IN SILICON VALLEY: 1990–2000

This article uses panel data collected at the block group level from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census to explore neighborhood change in the Silicon Valley region of Northern California. This was a period of rapid economic expansion and displacement of the white majority by immigrants of Asian and Hispanic descent. The argument that economic prosperity promotes ethnic group assimilation is confronted by mixed findings that ethnic residential segregation intensified in Silicon Valley during the 1990s, regardless of the income level of neighborhoods, and that some second generation immigrants have begun to assimilate residentially. Results support the argument that more recent immigrants, regardless of education, are likely to reside in areas populated by members of their ethnic group. In addition, upward mobility does not necessarily mean ethnic minorities will leave ethnic neighborhoods and desegregate the larger metropolitan area, which also creates the potential for proliferation of more affluent ethnic neighborhoods.     

Neighborhood Effects on Youth Substance Use in a Southwestern City

This study examines neighborhood influences on alcohol, cigarette and marijuana use among a predominantly Latino middle school sample. Drawing on theories of immigrant adaptation and segmented assimilation, we test whether neighborhood immigrant, ethnic, and socioeconomic composition, violent crime, residential instability, and family structure have differential effects on substance use among youth from different ethnic and acculturation backgrounds. Data are drawn from self-reports from 3,721 7(th) grade students attending 35 Phoenix, Arizona middle schools. Analysis was restricted to the two largest ethnic groups, Latino students of Mexican heritage and non-Hispanic Whites. After adjusting for individual-level characteristics and school- level random effects, only one neighborhood effect was found for the sample overall, an undesirable impact of neighborhood residential instability on recent cigarette use. Sub-group analyses by individual ethnicity and acculturation showed more patterned neighborhood effects. Living in neighborhoods with high proportions of recent immigrants was protective against alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use for Latino students at different acculturation levels, while living in predominantly Mexican heritage neighborhoods (mostly non-immigrants) was a risk factor for alcohol and marijuana use for less acculturated Latinos. There were scattered effects of neighborhood poverty and crime, which predicted more cigarette and alcohol use, respectively, but only among more acculturated Latinos. Inconsistent effects confined to bilingual and more acculturated Latinos were found for the neighborhood's proportion of single mother families and its residential instability. No neighborhood effects emerged for non-Hispanic White students. Results suggested that disadvantaged neighborhoods increase substance use among some ethnic minority youth, but immigrant enclaves appear to provide countervailing protections.     

Neighborhood Outcomes of Formally Homeless Veterans Participating in the HUD-VASH Program

Research regarding how neighborhoods affect the people who live in them has grown in recent years. However, the neighborhood outcomes of formally homeless veterans have not received the attention this group warrants. This article examines the neighborhood outcomes of two groups of housing voucher holders. Using administrative data, this exploratory study finds that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) voucher holders receiving comprehensive case management reside in higher quality neighborhoods than those who do not receive these services. Additionally, this effect seems to be a more critical factor for African Americans than Whites. Use of case managers with housing vouchers may improve African American residential outcomes in terms of neighborhood quality.     

Neighborhood disadvantage, disorder, and health.

We examine the question of whether living in a disadvantaged neighborhood damages health, over and above the impact of personal socioeconomic characteristics. We hypothesize that (1) health correlates negatively with neighborhood disadvantage adjusting for personal disadvantage, and that (2) neighborhood disorder mediates the association, (3) partly because disorder and the fear associated with it discourage walking and (4) partly because they directly impair health. Data are from the 1995 Community, Crime, and Health survey, a probability sample of 2,482 adults in Illinois, with linked information about the respondent's census tract. We find that residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods have worse health (worse self-reported health and physical functioning and more chronic conditions) than residents of more advantaged neighborhoods. The association is mediated entirely by perceived neighborhood disorder and the resulting fear. It is not mediated by limitation of outdoor physical activity. The daily stress associated with living in a neighborhood where danger, trouble, crime and incivility are common apparently damages health. We call for a bio-demography of stress that links chronic exposure to threatening conditions faced by disadvantaged individuals in disadvantaged neighborhoods with physiological responses that may impair health.     

Neighborhood context and racial/ethnic disparities in judicial processing

This article examines the importance of neighborhoods in shaping judicial processing and racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes. Scholarship instructs that court actors—prosecutors, defense counsel, and judges—make legal decisions with local communities in mind. With the rise of geographic information in arrest records and mapping techniques, greater opportunities exist to evaluate the role of neighborhood context in the juvenile and criminal courts. This article synthesizes research on how the characteristics of neighborhoods where defendants live and/or offend influence judicial processing. Attention is given to how scholars define neighborhoods, identify key neighborhood conditions, and analyze the relationships among places and judicial decisions. Emphasis is also placed on unpacking debates on whether neighborhood conditions diminish or aggravate racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes, such as incarceration decisions. Its analysis reveals findings of neighborhood effects as well as evidence of neighborhood characteristics widening racial/ethnic differences in judicial processing. This article thus encourages the consideration of community context in disparity studies and policy efforts to improve citizens' access to justice.     

Neighborhood racial & ethnic diversity as a predictor of child welfare system involvement

Using U.S. Census and child maltreatment report data for 2052 Census tracts in Los Angeles County, California, this study uses spatial regression techniques to explore the relationship between neighborhood social disorganization and maltreatment referral rates for Black, Hispanic and White children. Particular attention is paid to the racial–ethnic diversity (or ‘heterogeneity’) of neighborhood residents as a risk factor for child welfare system involvement, as social disorganization theory suggests that cultural differences and racism may decrease neighbors' social cohesion and capacity to enforce norms regarding acceptable parenting and this may, in turn, increase neighborhood rates of child maltreatment. Results from this study indicate that racial–ethnic diversity is a risk factor for child welfare involvement for all three groups of children studied, even after controlling for other indicators of social disorganization. Black, Hispanic and White children living in diverse neighborhoods are significantly more likely to be reported to Child Protective Services than children of the same race/ethnicity living in more homogeneous neighborhoods. However, the relationships between child welfare system involvement and the other indicators of social disorganization measured, specifically impoverishment, immigrant concentration child care burden, residential instability, and housing stress, varied considerably between Black, Hispanic and White children. For Black children, only housing stress predicted child maltreatment referral rates; whereas, neighborhood impoverishment, residential instability, and child care burden also predicted higher child maltreatment referral rates for Hispanic and White children. Immigrant concentration was unrelated to maltreatment referral rates for Black and Hispanic children, and predicted lower maltreatment referral rates for White children. Taken together, these findings suggest that racial–ethnic diversity may be one of the more reliable neighborhood-level demographic indicators of child welfare risk across different racial/ethnic groups of children. However, many of the other neighborhood characteristics that influence child maltreatment referrals differ for Black, Hispanic and White children. Consequently, neighborhood-based family support initiatives should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to child abuse prevention and strategically consider the racial/ethnic make-up of targeted communities.     

Exploring the Socioeconomic and Immigration Health Contexts of Asian Americans

Despite an overall picture of good health for Asian Americans in the aggregate, growing evidence shows that specific subgroups—particularly those with high proportions of immigrants—have diverse patterns relative to socioeconomic position and health. Using data from the largest U.S. state health survey, this study explores the contributions of socioeconomic and immigration factors to health status among Asian American subgroups. Results indicate that level of education, income, and English language ability were significant predictors of health status for the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese subgroups. Varying patterns in the results by subgroup are discussed in the context of immigration policy.     

Intermarriage,Ethnic Identity,and Perceived Social Standing Among Asian Women in the United States

This study investigates the consequences of Asian women's intermarriage—whether it is associated with higher social standing and lower ethnic identity, using data on Asian women (N = 589) from the National Latino and Asian American Survey (NLAAS). The socioeconomic status of partners of women who intermarried and partners of women who married men of the same ethnicity are compared. The potential associations between intermarriage and two subjective measures—ethnic identity and perceived social standing—are explored. The study rejects the hypothesis based on the conventional belief that Asian women in the United States find “better” partners with higher socioeconomic status from other racial or ethnic groups. The findings support the view that marital assimilation leads to identificational assimilation and demonstrate that intermarriage is not associated with higher perceived social standing. The results suggest that educational and occupational endogamy plays a larger role in Asian women's intermarriage than social exchange.     

Access to health care: does neighborhood residential instability matter?

Many Americans do not have access to adequate medical care. Previous research on this problem focuses primarily on individual-level determinants of access such as income and insurance coverage. The role of community-level factors in helping or hindering individuals in obtaining needed medical care, however, has not received much attention. We address this gap in the literature by investigating the association between neighborhood residential instability and access to health care. Using individual-level data from the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and block-group level data from the 2000 decennial census, we find that individuals who live in neighborhoods with high residential turnover have worse health care access than residents of other neighborhoods. This association persists even when the prevalence of poverty, the supply of health care, and a variety of individual characteristics are held constant. We offer explanations for these findings and suggest directions for future research.     

Many dimensions of Asian American pan‐ethnicity

Asian Americans as a group consist of over 20 national origin groups with distinctive ethnicity, language, religion, cultural practices, immigration history, and perceptions of life in the United States. While “Asian American” has been interchangeably used to refer to both racial and pan‐ethnic grouping of individuals of Asian heritage, the exact meaning of the term varies contextually by one's ethnicity, experiences, and other social, structural, and cultural characteristics. In this article, I investigate three distinctive ways in which Asian Americans understand and enact upon their pan‐ethnicity: (a) as a political instrument, (b) as a social group identity, and (c) as a path of integration into the mainstream society. Then, I briefly discuss implications of pan‐ethnicity for Asian Americans, before turning to the discussion of ways in which future research could further investigate the complexities of pan‐ethnicity. I conclude by attempting to provide a nuanced definition of Asian American pan‐ethnicity based on the literature reviewed in this article.