Perceived neighborhood disorder, racial-ethnic discrimination and leading risk factors for chronic disease among women: California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2013

Abstract

Social environmental factors are theoretically identified as influential drivers of health behaviors – tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity – related to chronic disease disparities. Empirical studies investigating relationships involving social environmental factors have found that either greater interpersonal racial-ethnic discrimination or perceived neighborhood disorder were associated with adverse health behaviors, with potentially larger effects among women. We simultaneously tested whether measures of perceived racial-ethnic discrimination and perceived neighborhood disorder were associated with physical activity, alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking; lifestyle risk factors of major chronic disease among women. Data were from the 2013 California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. In addition to demographic and socioeconomic factors, women self-reported experiences with racial-ethnic discrimination and perception of neighborhood disorder (i.e., crime safety, traffic safety, and aesthetics/physical disorder). Survey-, and inverse probability of censoring-weighted regression models of each chronic disease risk factor were used to investigate associations involving racial-ethnic discrimination and neighborhood disorder, controlling for potential confounders. Perceiving racial-ethnic discrimination and greater neighborhood disorder were associated with a greater tobacco smoking prevalence. Experiences of racial-ethnic discrimination were associated with greater alcohol consumption among African American and Latino women, but not White women. Similarly, African American women reporting experiences with racial-ethnic discrimination report engaging in physical activity about half as much time as women reporting no racial-ethnic discrimination. Increases in perceived neighborhood disorder were associated with increases in alcohol consumption. All associations with social environmental factors were adjusted for potential confounders and each other. Neighborhood disorder and racial-ethnic discrimination may be important, independent contributors to chronic disease risk through relationships with tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity.

Prediagnostic Allostatic Load as a Predictor of Poorly Differentiated and Larger Sized Breast Cancers among Black Women in the Women's Circle of Health Follow-Up Study

“…[1][2][3] It is clear that the reasons for breast cancer mortality inequities are complex, 4,5 and might result from combined effects of intrinsic biological factors (e.g., hormone receptor status, genetic alterations, molecular subtypes) as well as non-biological factors (e.g., social determinants of health). In terms of the potential impacts of nonbiological factors that might contribute to aggressive breast cancer phenotypes and poorer outcomes, Black women tend to experience higher levels of health-adverse psychosocial stressors (e.g., discrimination, socioeconomic resources, social and physical disorder) than non-Hispanic White women in the United States (US), [6][7][8] which might lead to adverse health outcomes, [8][9][10][11] potentially including poorer breast cancer outcomes. Such experiences likely contribute to the cumulative physiologic stress and wear and tear on the body.…”

Visual cues of the built environment and perceived stress among a cohort of black breast cancer survivors

“…Previous, mostly cross-sectional, studies have found that participant-perceived residential physical disorder indicators - lower aesthetic appeal, presence of garbage, graffiti, and poor building conditions - have been associated with participant-reported stress, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, physical activity, and various health outcomes ( Latkin and Curry, 2003 ; Mayne et al, 2018 ; Theall et al, 2013 ; Giurgescu et al, 2015 ; Plascak et al, 2018 ; O’Brien et al, 2019 ). Despite their importance investigating relationships between perceived environmental stressors and health outcomes, these studies are limited by the potential of same-source bias ( Chum et al, 2019 ).…”

Neighborhood social integration as a predictor of neighborhood perceptions

“…Perceptions of a range of neighborhood problems are associated with poorer self‐rated physical health (Godhwani et al, 2019), increased obesity rates (Burdette & Hill, 2008; Rooks et al, 2014), increased rates of alcohol use (Hill & Angel, 2005; Plascak et al, 2018), engagement in dating violence (Rothman et al, 2011) as well as dating violence victimization (Malik et al, 1997), and mortality among older adults (Wen et al, 2005). Negatively perceived neighborhoods were found to have higher noise levels and lower levels of safety, cleanliness, visual appeal, and reputation (Mouratidis, 2020).…”