Defining neighborhood boundaries for urban health research
Defining neighborhood boundaries for urban health research
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DOI：
10.1016/j.amepre.2007.02.034
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发表时间：
2007-06-01
影响因子：
5.5
通讯作者：
Vlahov, David
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Weiss, Linda;Ompad, Danielle;Vlahov, David
近年来，探索社区对健康影响的文献数量迅速增加，但仍存在一些方法论问题，包括识别和描绘研究社区的首选方法。在结合人口普查或其他可公开获得的数据与居民调查和/或街道观察相结合的研究中，关于社区定义的问题具有额外的意义。社区的确定和描绘必须以优化这些来源的数据的质量和可用性的方式进行。IMPACT(预测艾滋病毒/艾滋病、俱乐部和其他毒品过渡的内城精神健康研究)是一项多层次研究，旨在研究城市环境特征与心理健康、药物使用和性行为之间的关联，利用多步骤社区定义过程，包括制定人口普查区块组图，审查土地使用和人口普查区域数据，以及在每个目标社区进行实地访问和观察。现场观察以预先确定的环境特征清单为指导，这些特征侧重于招募的潜力(例如，行人流量)、通常用于定义社区边界的特征(例如，对行人交通的阻碍、土地使用的变化)以及文献中与健康行为和健康结果相关联的特征(例如，住房类型以及空地的维护和使用)。这一进程于2005年2月至7月实施，证明是可行的，并提供了机会，以确定适合研究目标的社区，并收集可用作理解研究结果的背景的描述性信息。
The body of literature exploring neighborhood effects on health has increased rapidly in recent years, yet a number of methodologic concerns remain, including preferred methods for identification and delineation of study neighborhoods. In research combining census or other publicly available data with surveys of residents and/or street-level observations, questions regarding neighborhood definition take on added significance. Neighborhoods must be identified and delineated in such a way as to optimize quality and availability of data from each of these sources.IMPACT (Inner-City Mental Health Study Predicting HIV/AIDS, Club and Other Drug Transitions), a multilevel study examining associations among features of the urban environment and mental health, drug use, and sexual behavior, utilized a multistep neighborhood definition process including development of census block group maps, review of land use and census tract data, and field visits and observation in each of the targeted communities. Field observations were guided by a preidentified list of environmental features focused on the potential for recruitment (e.g., pedestrian volume), characteristics commonly used to define neighborhood boundaries (e.g., obstructions to pedestrian traffic, changes in land use), and characteristics that have been associated in the literature with health behaviors and health outcomes (such as housing type and maintenance and use of open spaces). This process, implemented in February through July 2005, proved feasible and offered the opportunity to identify neighborhoods appropriate to study objectives and to collect descriptive information that can be used as a context for understanding study results.