NEIGHBORHOODS AND THE HEALTH OF ELDERLY AMERICANS

这个项目是与P50 ES012383，Nicole Lurie，了解社区对健康的影响。 这个项目调查了背景因素，特别是社区的建筑和社会经济特征，如何影响美国老年人的健康。社区特征可能以两种主要方式影响老年人的健康：通过对健康状况和功能的直接同期影响，或通过生命过程中早期阶段的累积影响。由于许多邻里特征是可以修改的，找出那些对健康影响最大的邻里环境方面的变化，对于解决健康差距和改善整体健康可能变得重要。了解社区环境在生命周期的哪些点对健康影响最大，将进一步为减少老年健康和功能差异的干预措施提供信息。不幸的是，关于这些背景因素如何影响晚年健康和功能的文献很少。现有的少数关于老年人的研究是基于小样本，主要来自有限的地理区域，因此概括性有限。我们建议开展一项全国性的研究，研究社区建设和社会环境对老年人健康和功能的影响。这项研究的目的如下：1)测量建筑和社会环境对老年人健康和健康轨迹的影响，重点确定对健康影响最大并受政策干预的社区特征；2)了解早期社区环境如何以及在什么情况下影响老年人的健康；以及3)调查社区特征是否对老年人的重要亚群，如男性和女性，社会经济地位较低的人，以及种族/少数民族产生不同的影响。 这项研究将使用两个具有全国代表性的小组数据集，即健康和退休调查(1992-2002年)和收入动态小组研究(1968-2003年)。这些数据集包含代表美国老年人口的大量老年人样本。来自中心数据核心工作的邻里特征将与人口普查区域一级的个人数据合并。

This project is coordinated with P50 ES012383, Nicole Lurie, ?UNDERSTANDING NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACTS ON HEALTH.? This project investigates how contextual factors, specifically the built and socioeconomic features of neighborhoods, affect the health of elderly Americans. Neighborhood characteristics may influence the health of elderly persons in two principal ways: through direct contemporaneous effects on health status and functioning, or through cumulative effects from earlier points in the lifecourse. Because many neighborhood features are modifiable, identifying changes in those aspects of neighborhood environment with the greatest influence on health could become important in addressing health disparities and improving health overall. Understanding at what points in the lifecourse the neighborhood environment most affects health will further inform interventions to reduce disparities in health and functioning in old age. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of literature on how these contextual factors affect late-life health and functioning. The few existing studies of the elderly are based on small sample sizes drawn largely from confined geographic areas and are thus of limited generalizability. We propose to undertake a national study of the effect of neighborhoods, both built and social environments on health and functioning in old age. The study has the following aims: 1) to measure the effects of the built and social environment on the health and health trajectories of the elderly, with a focus on identifying those neighborhood features that have the most impact on health and are amenable to policy interventions; 2) to understand how and at what points neighborhood environments from earlier in life influence health in old age; and 3) to examine whether neighborhood features have differential impacts on important subpopulations of the elderly, such as men and women, people with low socioeconomic status, and racial/ethnic minorities. The study will use two nationally representative panel data sets, the Health and Retirement Survey (1992-2002) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1968-2003). These data sets contain large samples of elderly persons that are representative of the elderly population of the United States. Neighborhood characteristics, derived from the work of the Center's data core, will be merged with the individual level data at the census tract level.