EDITORIAL
Health and neighbourhood
Neighbourhood influences on health
Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor I Kawachi
Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Outstanding issues in the neighbourhood research agenda
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Although multilevel studies help to tease apart contextual from compositional influences on health, they do not in themselves consider other threats to causal inference, particularly selection and endogeneity.1 Endogeneity occurs when people choose to move to a particular neighbourhood—for example, one with cleaner air or medical amenities—because of an existing health problem (reverse causation). Endogeneity can also occur because of the presence of unobserved common prior causes of neighbourhood-level exposures and health outcomes (confounding)—for example, it is commonly supposed that the presence of fast-food outlets in a neighbourhood increases the risk of obesity for local residents. However, it is equally plausible that the decision of fast food franchises to open their businesses in particular locations occurs in response to the tastes of local residents. In this instance, taste for fatty food is an unobserved variable that is related to both the location of outlets as well as
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Articles
- In this issue
- Carlos Alvarez-Dardet, John R Ashton
J Epidemiol Community Health 2007 61: 1.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Sharing hypotheses and ideas in public health research: contributing to the research agenda
- Blanca Lumbreras, Ildefonso Hernández-Aguado
J Epidemiol Community Health 2007 61: 2-4.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Fernald, L. C. H., Gertler, P. J., Hou, X.
(2008). Cash Component of Conditional Cash Transfer Program Is Associated with Higher Body Mass Index and Blood Pressure in Adults. J. Nutr.
138: 2250-2257
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Lang, I. A., Llewellyn, D. J., Langa, K. M., Wallace, R. B., Melzer, D.
(2008). Neighbourhood deprivation and incident mobility disability in older adults. Age Ageing
37: 403-410
[Abstract] [Full Text]
eLetters:
Read all eLetters
- Multilevel modelling of the longitudinal influence of neighbourhoods on health
- Alastair H Leyland, et al.
- J Epidemiol Community Health Online, 18 Jan 2007 [Full text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Read responses to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
