We examine the question of whether living in a disadvantaged neighborhood damages health, over and above the impact of personal socioeconomic characteristics. We hypothesize that (1) health correlates negatively with neighborhood disadvantage adjusting for personal disadvantage, and that (2) neighborhood disorder mediates the association, (3) partly because disorder and the fear associated with...

This study examined relations among neighborhood disadvantage, parent-child conflict, deviant peer involvement in the neighborhood, and early-starting antisocial trajectories. Antisocial group patterns were identified in 218 low-income boys followed from ages 5 to 11, and neighborhood and family variables were evaluated as predictors in early and middle childhood. Four trajectory groups emerged...

Although neighborhood stressors have a negative impact on youth, and social support can play a protective role, it is unclear what types and sources of social support may contribute to positive outcomes among at-risk youth. We examined the influences of neighborhood disadvantage and social support on global self-worth among low-income, urban African American youth, both concurrently and longitu...

Two studies examined how the relevance of group identity influences two psychological mechanisms of collective action: Emotion- and problem-focused coping with collective disadvantage. Extending Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, and Leach's (2004) integrative theoretical model of coping with collective disadvantage, we predicted that when group identity is more relevant to disadvantaged group membe...

BACKGROUND 'Place' matters in understanding prevalence variations and inequalities in child maltreatment risk. However, most studies examining ecological variations in child maltreatment risk fail to take into account the implications of the spatial and temporal dimensions of neighborhoods. In this study, we conduct a high-resolution small-area study to analyze the influence of neighborhood cha...

The purpose of the present study was to examine relations among multiple child and family protective factors, neighborhood disadvantage, and positive social adjustment in a sample of 226 urban, low SES boys followed from infancy to early adolescence. The results indicated that child IQ, nurturant parenting, and parent-child relationship quality, measured in early childhood, were all significant...

The current study examined the impact of exposure to violence and neighborhood disadvantage on criminal recidivism among Black (n = 69) and White (n = 53) female juvenile offenders. Participants were girls between the ages of 13 and 19 (M = 16.8; SD = 1.2) who were sentenced to secure custody. Using a multi-method research design, the study assessed neighborhood disadvantage through census leve...

Researchers have yet to examine the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on early child behavior problems (BPs) longitudinally. We examined the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on overt BPs in a low-income, urban sample of 281 African American and European American boys followed longitudinally from toddlerhood to school entry. Measures included census data and maternal report of BPs, sociocul...

We examined the association between community violence exposure and childhood asthma risk in a multilevel, multimethod, longitudinal study controlling for individual- and neighbourhood-level confounders and pathway variables. Analyses included 2,071 children aged 0-9 yrs at enrolment from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Multilevel logistic regression models estimated ...

Disparities in verbal ability, a major predictor of later life outcomes, have generated widespread debate, but few studies have been able to isolate neighborhood-level causes in a developmentally and ecologically appropriate way. This study presents longitudinal evidence from a large-scale study of >2,000 children ages 6-12 living in Chicago, along with their caretakers, who were followed where...