Does poor health predict moving, move quality, and desire to move?: A study examining neighborhood selection in US adolescents and adults

Abstract

Background To date, very little research has considered the role of health on shaping characteristics of the neighborhood, including mobility patterns. We explored whether individual health status is one of the characteristics that shape and constrain where individuals live. Methods Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we examined whether 16 health indicators (e.g., health behaviors, symptoms, overall status) predicted moving, move quality, and desire to move. Results 3.8% of adolescents (n=490) reported a move in the past year. In the unadjusted models, 10 health indicators were associated with moving; the magnitude of association for these health indicators was similar to socio-demographic characteristics. Seven of these health-moving associations persisted after adjusting for covariates. Health indicators were also associated with moving quality, with a greater number of past year health problems in the child being associated with moving to lower income neighborhood and parent disability or poor health being associated with moving to a higher income neighborhood. Almost every poor health status indicator was associated with a greater desire to move, even after adjusting for covariates. Conclusion Findings suggest health status influences moving. Prior health status must therefore be considered when interpreting results from neighborhood effects studies.

Research on neighborhood effects on health in the United States: A systematic review of study characteristics

“…Earlier studies that adjusted for stated neighborhood preferences (Frank et al, 2007) to assess health-related selection effects are now joined by new empirical evidence supporting (M. C. Arcaya et al, 2014; Dunn et al, 2014) (Arcaya et al, 2015) and disputing (James et al, 2015) the idea that health is a meaningful neighborhood selection factor. Clarifying the casual role of health status in determining residential outcomes is important for both generating unbiased neighborhood effects on health estimates and for understanding the substantively important process that determine residential mobility.…”

Role of health in predicting moves to poor neighborhoods among Hurricane Katrina survivors

“…Designating health as an outcome and neighborhood characteristics as exposures, although key to informing equitable and health-promoting policies (14), is so pervasive that reverse causation and endogeneity are largely relegated to a single nuisance category of "selection." Selection has been subject to ample theoretical attention (8,(14)(15)(16) and empirical scrutiny as a source of bias in neighborhood-effects estimates (17)(18)(19), but it is rarely (20,21) viewed as an outcome of interest in its own right in the context of understanding neighborhood-health interactions.…”

Cohort profile: UK COSMOS—a UK cohort for study of environment and health

“…One caveat is that response may be related to a change such as moving address, which in turn is related to, for example, age and socioeconomic factors. 12 , 13 …”