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Neighborhood Age Structure and its Implications for Health

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Abstract

Age structure at the neighborhood level is rarely considered in contextual studies of health. However, age structure can play a critical role in shaping community life, the availability of resources, and the opportunities for social engagement—all factors that, research suggests, have direct and indirect effects on health. Age structure can be theorized as a compositional effect and as a contextual effect. In addition, the dynamic nature of age structure and the utility of a life course perspective as applied to neighborhood effects research merits attention. Four Chicago neighborhoods are summarized to illustrate how age structure varies across small space, suggesting that neighborhood age structure should be considered a key structural covariate in contextual research on health. Considering age structure implies incorporating not only meaningful cut points for important age groups (e.g., proportion 65 years and over) but attention to the shape of the distribution as well.

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Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge Christopher Browning and David Meltzer for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Many thanks to Danielle Wallace for assistance with the construction of the population pyramids. Support for this research was provided by R01AG022488 from the National Institute on Aging.

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Correspondence to Kathleen A. Cagney.

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Cagney, K.A. Neighborhood Age Structure and its Implications for Health. JURH 83, 827–834 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-006-9092-z

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