Neighborhoods and Health

The highly successful first edition of Neighborhoods and Health (published in 2003), coedited by Ichiro Kawachi and Lisa Berkman, is one of the most highly cited texts in the field of neighborhood health research. However, the methods and substantive research have changed a great deal since it was published more than a decade ago. Although research connecting neighborhoods and health has been conducted for many years, research in neighborhoods and health (also known as spatial epidemiology) has indeed exploded in the last few years in particular—both in terms of content and newer methodological approaches, including the use of global positioning systems (GPS) technology to define “activity space neighborhoods.” Each chapter of this book will cover major theories and insights from the accumulated wealth of new research on neighborhoods and health. The book also covers emerging areas in neighborhoods and health research, including chapters discussing neighborhood stigma, as well as on neighborhood home foreclosures.

Agent-Based Models

Agent-based modeling is a newer approach to the study of neighborhoods and health. In brief, an agent-based model is one of a class of computational models for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities, such as organizations or groups) with a view to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. Neighborhood characteristics and resources evolve and adapt as the individuals living within them change and vice versa. In this way, neighborhoods reflect a complex adaptive system. In this chapter, we introduce agent-based models as a tool for modeling these interactive and adaptive processes that occur within a system, such as a neighborhood. The chapter provides a basic introduction to this method, drawing on examples from the neighborhoods and health literature.

Neighborhoods and Health

A large body of research in epidemiology and population health has investigated relationships between neighborhood characteristics (e.g., crime rate, density of fast food restaurants, distance to parks) and a myriad of health outcomes (e.g., obesity, mental health, substance use), with an explosion of research within the last decade, which spans a variety of disciplines, for example, anthropology, sociology, criminology, geography, demography, urban planning, medicine and epidemiology. This chapter provides a historical perspective to neighborhood health research. In addition, this chapter provides a systematic survey of new and notable developments in the field of neighborhoods and health as well as provides directions for future research. It also describes the motivation and rationale for this book and guides the reader through the structure of the rest of the book.