Targeting Health Disparities through Housing Redevelopment: A Natural Experiment of Housing Quality, Stability, and Economic Integration

Boston College, Chestnut Hill MA

Investigators

Abstract

Contact PD/PI: COLEY, REBEKAH Levine PROJECT ABSTRACT By exploring stress exposure, neighborhood perceptions and experiences, perceptions of access and inequality, and mental and physical health among Black residents in an urban public housing community, this project provides a unique opportunity to contribute to a growing body of research that examines intraracial differences in mental and physical health outcomes among Black Americans. Results will further understanding of the complexities of Black health and well- being, enduring racial health disparities, and the social, political, and environmental contexts that drive health disparities within urban settings. This study will further racial health disparities research through the following specific aims: Aim 1: Trace neighborhood demographic, political, and social shifts from 1980-present to ground an examination of variations in environmental inequality, perceptions of inequality, and resource utilization for Black residents. Aim 2: Expand the qualitative substudy sample size and add a focus on how Black residents define and construct their subjective neighborhood boundaries (physical and symbolic), experiences, and sociohistorical understandings of their neighborhood, including variation across gender, age, and ethnicity. Aim 3: Use mixed methods research to examine stress exposure, stress experience/appraisal, coping resources, and links to mental and physical health outcomes among Black residents, including variation across gender, age, and ethnicity. Project Abstract Page 6