Gentrification, displacement, and health equity: Moving from risks to solutions

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Project Summary/Abstract Gentrification is a significant determinant of health. As a multi-staged process of urban change that occurs in historically disinvested neighborhoods, gentrification may increase access and availability to health promoting resources such as supermarkets, parks and other recreational facilities, and public infrastructure, for some; and rupture social networks, increase the cost of housing and other goods, and displace people and risks, for others. Despite clear connections to health outcomes, many questions about how gentrification impacts resident health and how these impacts vary across populations, remain. Given the historical underpinnings of neighborhood disinvestment and the ongoing legacy of structural racism, Black, low-income communities are increasingly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of gentrification including displacement which can exist in multiple forms (e.g. cultural, political, and residential) to influence health. There is a dearth of research that examines the relationship between gentrification-induced displacement and health, especially within Black, low-income communities. The proposed F31 addresses this critical gap through two aims. First, through longitudinal analysis this project will examine the relationship between gentrification, occurring across space (census tracts) and time (data from 2000 to 2016), current year eviction rates (as a process of displacement), and self-rated health. This analysis will identify the concurrent effects of gentrification on eviction and health while also estimating the cumulative impact of gentrification over pre-specified periods of time. Analyses will assess race, measured as percent Black, as a moderator of this relationship. Next, I will conduct concept mapping, a mixed methods approach, among Black, low-income residents to explore: 1) the mechanisms that connect gentrification to displacement and displacement to three domains of health and well-being (i.e. access to health-promoting resources, individual health behaviors, and stress) and 2) perceptions of structural level solutions, in a framework of reparations, to reduce the risk and impact of gentrification-induced displacement. The proposed research addresses a critical need to examine displacement as a significant pathway linking gentrification to health in Black, low-income communities. Findings from this research will inform the creation of methodologies to examine multiple forms of gentrification-induced displacement at the individual level and help devise structural level solutions to disrupt gentrification-induced displacement and reduce related adverse health outcomes. After completion of this fellowship, the applicant will have an advanced skillset in longitudinal statistical methods, mixed-methods research, scientific communication, and community engagement. A multidisciplinary mentoring team will prepare the applicant for a career as an independent urban health equity researcher and academic mentor conducting gentrification research while designing structural level solutions to reduce health disparities for Black, low-income communities.