RSF-Funded Study: Moving to Low-Poverty Neighborhoods Improves Women's Health
The opportunity to move to a low-poverty neighborhood can lead to sizable reductions in extreme obesity and diabetes among poor women, according to a RSF-funded study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study, the first to use a randomized experimental design to analyze the relationship between neighborhoods and health, relied on data from nearly 4,500 women and children who were enrolled in a residential mobility program called Moving to Opportunity between 1994 to 1998. When the women were surveyed between 2008 and 2010, 17 percent in the study's control group were morbidly obese, and 20 percent had diabetes. However, in the group of women who were offered housing vouchers to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods, the rates of morbid obesity and diabetes were both about one-fifth lower than in the control group.
"These results highlight the great importance of learning more about what specific aspects of the social or physical environment reduce the risk of diabetes and obesity; for example, greater access to grocery stores, more opportunities for physical activity, or feelings of greater safety and reduced psychological stress," Jens Ludwig, the lead author of the study and a former RSF Visiting Scholar, said in a press release.
The research team behind the study included RSF trustee Lawrence Katz, RSF grantee Jeffrey Kling and RSF author Greg Duncan. Kling and Ludwig received a grant, "Neighborhoods and Social Inequality," from RSF in 2008 to support this project. To read the full study, click here. For more information, read the University of Chicago press release.