Residential mobility and liver cancer risk: findings from a prospective cohort study in Chinese women

BACKGROUND

Residential mobility is believed to influence the occurrence and development of cancer; however, the results are inconclusive. Furthermore, limited studies have been conducted on Asian populations. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between residential mobility and liver cancer risk among Chinese women.

METHODS

We enrolled 72,818 women from urban Shanghai between 1996 and 2000, and then followed them until the end of 2016. Cox regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the association between residential mobility and liver cancer risk. A linear trend test was conducted by ranking variables. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted, excluding participants with follow-up times of less than 2 years, to prevent potential bias.

RESULTS

During the 1,269,765 person-years of follow-up, liver cancer was newly diagnosed in 259 patients. Domestic migration (HR = 1.47, 95% CI, 1.44-1.50), especially immigration to Shanghai (HR = 1.47, 95% CI, 1.44-1.50) was associated with an increased risk of liver cancer. In addition, migration frequency, age at initial migration and first immigration to Shanghai had linear trends with an increased liver cancer risk (Ptrend <0.001). The results were similar when excluding participants with less than two years of follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

The possible association between residential mobility and a higher risk of liver cancer in women could suggest the need for effective interventions to reduce adverse environmental exposures and enhance people's health.

Trapped in Place? Ethnic and Educational Heterogeneity in Residential Mobility and Integration of Young Adults in Brussels

Spatial assimilation theory asserts that immigrants' socioeconomic progress leads to residential adaptation and integration. This association has proven robust in USA and European urban areas through much of the twentieth century, but drastic change of ethnic and class compositions yet persistent (neighbourhood) inequality in the urban landscape urge us to reconsider the dynamic interaction between stability and change. In this study, we investigate to what extent education shapes residential mobility differently for young adults with varying ethnic and social origins. Focussing on Brussels, we use multinomial logistic regressions on linked longitudinal population-based censuses from 1991 and 2001 and register data for the period 2001-2006. Analyses show that dispersal away from poor inner-city neighbourhoods appears least likely for the offspring of poor low-educated non-Western households, regardless of their own educational attainment. While our approach roughly confirms traditional arguments of socio-spatial integration, it also reveals how educational success generates opportunities to escape poor neighbourhoods for some but not for others. With this, it points at the subtle ways in which factors and mechanisms in traditional spatial assimilation theory affect residential behaviour of young adults over their life course, at the intersection of specific locales, ethnic groups, social classes and generations.

Who returned home? The COVID-19 pandemic and young adults' residential transitions

The COVID-19 pandemic is thought to have led to an increase in the percentage of young adults living with their parents, but the relative contributions made by moves into and out of the parental home to this increase are unknown. Also unknown is whether changes in the likelihood of home leaving and returning were concentrated among privileged or disadvantaged youth. This study used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition into Adulthood Supplement (2013-2021) and estimated logistic regression models to examine changes in the levels and correlates of moving into (n = 1872) and out of (n = 1852) the parental home before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Results show that relative to pre-pandemic trends, during the COVID-19 pandemic young adults were more likely to move back to the parental home and less likely to leave it. The increase in the likelihood of returning home was concentrated among young, white college students from advantaged families. The decline in leaving home was most pronounced among white and employed young adults.

Does China's residential mobility reduce fertility intentions? The mediating role of well-being

With declining fertility rates becoming a global trend, it is crucial to enhance the fertility intentions of mobile individuals of reproductive age. This study utilizes both questionnaire surveys and experimental methods to examine the influence of residential mobility on fertility intentions and the mediating role of well-being. The consistent findings from Study 1 and Study 2 (2a and 2b) indicate that residential mobility significantly negatively predicts individuals' fertility intentions, and well-being plays a significant mediating role between residential mobility and fertility intentions. This research, conducted from a psychological perspective, sheds light on the internal mechanisms linking residential mobility and fertility intentions, providing theoretical and empirical evidence to enhance fertility intentions among mobile populations in China.

Food insecurity as a mediator and moderator in the association between residential mobility and suicidal ideation among Indigenous adults in Canada

PURPOSE

Despite a growing body of literature on the link between residential mobility and suicidal ideation, research into potential mediating or moderating factors, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, is sparse. This study explores the mediating and moderating roles of food insecurity in the relationship between residential mobility and suicidal ideation in Indigenous Canadian adults.

METHODS

Data from the 2017 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, which represent a national sample of off-reserve First Nations peoples, Métis, and Inuit in Canada (N = 16,214), were analyzed using logistic regression models.

RESULTS

Food insecurity partially mediated the association between residential mobility in the past 5 years and increased suicidal ideation risk among Indigenous adults. Moreover, food insecurity intensified the adverse link between residential mobility during this same timeframe and suicidal ideation. Yet, while food insecurity did mediate the adverse relationship between residential mobility in the past year and suicidal ideation, it did not function as a moderator.

CONCLUSION

The results emphasize that food insecurity, as a systemic challenge, acts as both a partial mediator and, in some circumstances, an amplifier of the detrimental impacts of residential mobility on suicidal ideation.

Changes in air pollution exposure after residential relocation and body mass index in children and adolescents: A natural experiment study

Air pollution exposure may affect child weight gain, but observational studies provide inconsistent evidence. Residential relocation can be leveraged as a natural experiment by studying changes in health outcomes after a sudden change in exposure within an individual. We aimed to evaluate whether changes in air pollution exposure due to residential relocation are associated with changes in body mass index (BMI) in children and adolescents in a natural experiment study. This population-based study included children and adolescents, between 2 and 17 years, who moved during 2011-2018 and were registered in the primary healthcare in Catalonia, Spain (N = 46,644). Outdoor air pollutants (nitrogen dioxides (NO2), particulate matter <10 μm (PM10) and <2.5 μm (PM2.5)) were estimated at residential census tract level before and after relocation; tertile cut-offs were used to define changes in exposure. Routinely measured weight and height were used to calculate age-sex-specific BMI z-scores. A minimum of 180 days after moving was considered to observe zBMI changes according to changes in exposure using linear fixed effects regression. The majority of participants (60-67% depending on the pollutant) moved to areas with similar levels of air pollution, 15-49% to less polluted, and 14-31% to more polluted areas. Moving to areas with more air pollution was associated with zBMI increases for all air pollutants (β NO2 = 0.10(95%CI 0.09; 0.12), β PM2.5 0.06(0.04; 0.07), β PM10 0.08(0.06; 0.10)). Moving to similar air pollution areas was associated with decreases in zBMI for all pollutants. No associations were found for those moving to less polluted areas. Associations with moving to more polluted areas were stronger in preschool- and primary school-ages. Associations did not differ by area deprivation strata. This large, natural experiment study suggests that increases in outdoor air pollution may be associated with child weight gain, supporting ongoing efforts to lower air pollution levels.

Characteristics of movers and predictors of residential mobility in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort

Current efforts to characterize movers and identify predictors of moving have been limited. We used the ARIC cohort to characterize non-movers, short-distance movers, and long-distance movers, and employed best subset algorithms to identify important predictors of moving, including interactions between characteristics. Short- and long-distance movers were notably different from non-movers, and important predictors of moving differed based on the distance of the residential move. Importantly, systematic inclusion of interaction terms enhanced model fit and was substantively meaningful. This work has important implications for epidemiologic studies of contextual exposures and those treating residential mobility as an exposure.

An algorithm to identify residential mobility from electronic health-record data

BACKGROUND

Environmental, social and economic exposures can be inferred from address information recorded in an electronic health record. However, these data often contain administrative errors and misspellings. These issues make it challenging to determine whether a patient has moved, which is integral for accurate exposure assessment. We aim to develop an algorithm to identify residential mobility events and avoid exposure misclassification.

METHODS

At Penn Medicine, we obtained a cohort of 12 147 pregnant patients who delivered between 2013 and 2017. From this cohort, we identified 9959 pregnant patients with address information at both time of delivery and one year prior. We developed an algorithm entitled REMAP (Relocation Event Moving Algorithm for Patients) to identify residential mobility during pregnancy and compared it to using ZIP code differences alone. We assigned an area-deprivation exposure score to each address and assessed how residential mobility changed the deprivation scores.

RESULTS

To assess the accuracy of our REMAP algorithm, we manually reviewed 3362 addresses and found that REMAP was 95.7% accurate. In this large urban cohort, 41% of patients moved during pregnancy. REMAP outperformed the comparison of ZIP codes alone (82.9%). If residential mobility had not been taken into account, absolute area deprivation would have misclassified 39% of the patients. When setting a threshold of one quartile for misclassification, 24.4% of patients would have been misclassified.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study tackles an important characterization problem for exposures that are assigned based upon residential addresses. We demonstrate that methods using ZIP code alone are not adequate. REMAP allows address information from electronic health records to be used for accurate exposure assessment and the determination of residential mobility, giving researchers and policy makers more reliable information.

Longitudinal effects of physical and social neighbourhood change on suicide mortality: A full population cohort study among movers and non-movers in the Netherlands

Associations between the residential neighbourhood environment and suicide mortality are well-established; however, most evidence is cross-sectional and not capable of incorporating place-based and residential moving-related neighbourhood changes. We studied how suicide mortality is associated with changes in the physical and social neighbourhood environment for movers and non-movers. Our retrospective analysis was based on longitudinal register data for the entire Dutch population aged 25-64 years enriched with annually time-varying data on the residential neighbourhood environment between 2007 and 2016. A total of 8,741,021 people were followed-up between 2007 and 2016 of which 10,019 committed suicide. Upward and downward neighbourhood change was measured by comparing neighbourhood conditions separately at two time points. Cox proportional hazard models indicated that movers had a significantly lower risk of suicide compared to non-movers. Suicide risk was lower for people experiencing improvements in social fragmentation and deprivation compared to those remaining in poor conditions. Change from rural to urban conditions also resulted in lower suicide risk, while a gain in green space put people at increased risk. For those stable neighbourhood conditions over time, suicide mortality was lower for men and women in urban vs. rural neighbourhoods as well as for women in neighbourhoods with low vs. high social fragmentation. Stable exposure to high levels of green space resulted in higher suicide risk among women. Interactions and stratification by moving type revealed associations between neighbourhood change and suicide were more pronounced in non-movers. Our findings suggest that neighbourhood improvements might contribute to a lower suicide risk, especially for long-term residents in poor neighbourhood conditions.

Childhood eviction and cognitive development: Developmental timing-specific associations in an urban birth cohort

Eviction upends children's lives and exacerbates deprivation; it remains largely unexamined as a determinant of cognitive development. We assess whether children evicted in infancy, early childhood, and middle childhood exhibit lower scores on four cognitive assessments (measuring executive function, mathematical reasoning, written language skills, and vocabulary skills) at age 9. Using linear regression and selection weights, we analyze longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a national, urban birth cohort (N = 1724 for eviction during infancy, 2126 for early childhood, 1979 for middle childhood). These stages of childhood follow the timing of FFCWS' data collection waves, with "infancy" data collected in the first year of life, "early childhood" in the third and fifth years of life, and "middle childhood" in the ninth year. In adjusted models, children evicted in middle childhood exhibited scores 0.20-0.43 SDs below similar children who were not (depending on the assessment; p-values = 0.004-0.055), the equivalent of as much as a full year of schooling. Point estimates of the association between eviction in infancy and 3/4 cognitive skills at age 9 were also large, but imprecisely estimated (between -0.25 and -0.28 SDs; p-values = 0.053-0.101), while point estimates for eviction in early childhood were near zero and statistically insignificant. Our large estimates for middle childhood and infancy, compared to earlier residential mobility studies, indicate downwardly mobile moves may exhibit more severe associations with future cognition. Estimates suggest preventing eviction may be a powerful, cost-effective way to safeguard children's cognitive development.

Direct and Indirect Associations between Family Residential Mobility, Parent Functioning, and Adolescent Behavioral Health

Residential mobility and caregiver social support are two key factors influencing adolescents' and their caregivers' health status. However, few studies have examined whether these factors vary across developmental periods. The present study therefore adopted a life course perspective to investigate the longitudinal effects of residential mobility and caregiver social support on a range of individual health outcomes (i.e., caregiver depression, adolescent internalizing problems, and adolescent externalizing problems) among families exposed to disadvantaged social and economic conditions. Data were obtained from the Longitudinal Studies in Child Abuse and Neglect, and 425 children and their caregivers who completed the age 12, 14, 16, and 18 interviews were included in this study. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the measurement and structural models. The results showed that greater residential mobility was significantly associated with higher levels of caregiver depression, which in turn led to more adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. Alternatively, higher levels of caregiver social support mitigated the levels of caregiver depression, which in turn resulted in fewer adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. Highly mobile children and their caregivers were found to be vulnerable to several negative health outcomes and in high need of mental and behavioral health support and services. These findings inform important policy and practice implications on social support for mobile caregivers to address their children's behavioral problems.

The residential stability mindset increases racial in-group bias in empathy

With the deepening of internationalization, the population's mobility has greatly increased, which can impact people's intergroup relationships. The current research examined the hypothesis that residential mobility plays a crucial role in racial in-group bias in empathy (RIBE) with three studies. By manipulating the residential mobility/stability mindset and measuring subjective pain intensity ratings (Study 1) and event-related potentials (ERPs, Study 2) of Chinese adults on painful and neutral expressions of Asian and Caucasian faces, we found that the RIBE in subjective ratings and N1 amplitudes increased and P3 amplitudes decreased in the stability group. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) manipulation in Study 3 further found that anodal stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) increased the RIBE of participants with residential stability experience but had no effect on those with residential mobility experience. As residential mobility continues to increase worldwide, we may observe concomitant changes in racial intergroup relationships.

Obstacles and opportunities for reducing dwelling size to shrink the environmental footprint of housing: tenants' residential preferences and housing choice

The environmental footprint of housing is greatly influenced by the size of a dwelling. Housing size is the result of households' dwelling selections; accordingly, it is critical to consider residential preferences and choices to inform efforts towards housing sustainability. This study aimed to understand tenants' preferences for and choices of housing size as one amongst several dwelling characteristics and identify obstacles and opportunities for reducing size in the light of promoting sustainable housing. We employed logistic regression models to analyse a survey with 878 Swiss tenants, and our results identify preference for large dwellings as a major obstacle for reducing dwelling size among affluent tenants. Conversely, tenants with lower income might be forced to move to a smaller dwelling due to financial constraints or attribute higher importance to the financial benefit of lower rents. However, financial disincentives along with substantial non-monetary costs of moving, such as the disruption of local bonds and the difficulty of finding a satisfactory dwelling, can outweigh the benefits of moving to a smaller dwelling. To overcome such obstacles, we suggest offering incentives and other facilitating measures for downsizing moves as well as ensuring an adequate supply of smaller dwellings capable of providing high living quality. We highlight the potential of studying housing functions to conceptualize dwellings fulfilling these requirements.

Childhood residential mobility and health outcomes: A meta-analysis

This study assesses the association between childhood residential mobility and health-related outcomes by way of a meta-analysis of studies published between 1989 and 2020. The sample includes 844 effect sizes from 64 unique studies. The results point to a negative association (small to medium) between childhood mobility and health. This association is contingent upon the type of health outcome studied, age at outcome assessment, age at moving, and frequency of moves. The major confounders of this association are parental SES, parental marital status, ethnicity, and co-occurring childhood adversities. The implications for future research are discussed.

Residential history in cancer research: Utility of the annual billing ZIP code in the SEER-Medicare database and mobility among older women with breast cancer in the United States

There is a rise in attention to residential history in cancer epidemiology aimed at more effective estimation of social and physical environmental exposures and the influence of place of residence on cancer outcomes. However, in the United States, as in many other countries, residential history data are not readily available. In this paper we explore the feasibility of using the annual Medicare billing ZIP code history available in the SEER-Medicare database to study residential mobility among older cancer survivors in the U.S. In a cohort of women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2007 and 2015, we examine the completeness of the data along with the overall characteristics of residential moves based on race and stage at diagnosis. Findings indicate that residential mobility among older women with breast cancer in the U.S. is limited, but differences by race/ethnicity, stage at diagnosis and before/after diagnosis are statistically significant. And breast cancer survivors from minority groups move more frequently than their non-Hispanic White counterparts. The results also show that move rate slightly, but statistically significantly, increases after diagnosis. We conclude that SEER-Medicare can be utilized to study residential mobility among older cancer survivors. We recommend the creation of sub-cohorts based on specific research questions to account for variability in residential mobility due to very short survival times or a diagnosis shortly after Medicare enrollment. Studying residential history provides the opportunity for assigning socioecological and exposure metrics for future survival studies.

Characteristics associated with downward residential mobility among birthing persons in California

BACKGROUND

Substantial research documents health consequences of neighborhood disadvantage. Patterns of residential mobility that differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) may sort non-Hispanic (NH) Black and low-SES families into disadvantaged neighborhoods. In this study, we leverage a sibling-linked dataset to track residential mobility among birthing persons between pregnancies and investigate baseline characteristics associated with downward mobility, including race/ethnicity, SES, and pre-existing health conditions.

METHODS

We used a probabilistic linkage strategy to identify births to the same person between 2007 and 2015 (n = 624,222) and categorized downward residential mobility by quartile-level increases in neighborhood disadvantage. We defined strong downward mobility as a move from a neighborhood with very low (quartile 1) to very high (quartile 4) disadvantage and estimated the logit (i.e., log-odds) of strong downward mobility as a function of racial/ethnic, sociodemographic, and health characteristics of the birthing person and their first birth. We further explored the role of neighborhood housing affordability by examining changes in affordability from first to second birth by race/ethnicity.

RESULTS

NH Black birthing persons show an over three-fold increased odds of strong downward mobility relative to NH white birthing persons (OR = 3.34, CI: 2.91, 3.84). To a lesser extent, Hispanic race/ethnicity, WIC receipt, low educational attainment, obesity, and infant preterm birth (PTB) also predict strong downward mobility. Examination of changes in neighborhood affordability indicate that over half of NH Black birthing persons move to a more affordable neighborhood, compared to less than a quarter of NH white birthing persons, before the birth of their second child. Results remain consistent across outcomes, measures of neighborhood SES, and modified log-Poisson models.

CONCLUSION

We find an elevated risk of strong downward mobility among NH Black and low-SES birthing persons. Future research may identify other factors (e.g., housing affordability) that generate downward residential mobility to identify interventions that promote neighborhood equity.

Automation of cleaning and reconstructing residential address histories to assign environmental exposures in longitudinal studies

BACKGROUND

We have developed an open-source ALgorithm for Generating Address Exposures (ALGAE) that cleans residential address records to construct address histories and assign spatially-determined exposures to cohort participants. The first application of this algorithm was to construct prenatal and early life air pollution exposure for individuals of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in the South West of England, using previously estimated particulate matter ≤10  µm (PM10) concentrations.

METHODS

ALSPAC recruited 14 541 pregnant women between 1991 and 1992. We assigned trimester-specific estimated PM10 exposures for 12 752 pregnancies, and first year of life exposures for 12 525 births, based on maternal residence and residential mobility.

RESULTS

Average PM10 exposure was 32.6  µg/m3 [standard deviation (S.D.) 3.0  µg/m3] during pregnancy and 31.4 µg/m3 (S.D. 2.6  µg/m3) during the first year of life; 6.7% of women changed address during pregnancy, and 18.0% moved during first year of life of their infant. Exposure differences ranged from -5.3  µg/m3 to 12.4  µg/m3 (up to 26% difference) during pregnancy and -7.22  µg/m3 to 7.64  µg/m3 (up to 27% difference) in the first year of life, when comparing estimated exposure using the address at birth and that assessed using the complete cleaned address history. For the majority of individuals exposure changed by <5%, but some relatively large changes were seen both in pregnancy and in infancy.

CONCLUSIONS

ALGAE provides a generic and adaptable, open-source solution to clean addresses stored in a cohort contact database and assign life stage-specific exposure estimates with the potential to reduce exposure misclassification.

Lasting effects of residential mobility during childhood on psychopathology among Chinese University students

BACKGROUND

Residential mobility during childhood increases risk of psychopathology in adulthood and is a common experience among Chinese children. This study investigated associations between number and age of first move, etiological risk factors for psychopathology, and common mental disorders in adolescence and early adulthood.

METHODS

The sample included 39,531 undergraduates (84.5% completion rate) age 15-34 years in their first year at a Chinese comprehensive university in annual cross-sectional surveys during 2014-2018. Common mental disorders measured using standardised self-report instruments. Data analysed using logistic regression models and interaction analysis.

RESULTS

Half of all students experienced one or more moves of residence before age 15 years. Outcomes of Depression, Somatisation, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Hallucinations and Delusions, and Suicide attempts showed dose-response relationships with increasing number of moves. Other etiological risk factors, including childhood disadvantage and maltreatment, showed similar dose response relationships but did not confound associations with mobility. We found interactions between reporting any move and being a left-behind child on depression and somatisation; number of moves and younger age at first move on depression, somatisation, suicide attempts and hallucinations and delusions.

CONCLUSIONS

Residential mobility in childhood is associated with psychopathology in adulthood and this association increases with increasing number of moves. Mobility is also associated with childhood disadvantage and maltreatment but associations with psychopathology are independent of these factors. Multiplicative effects were shown for multiple moves starting at a younger age and if the participant had been a left-behind child.

The role of residential history in cancer research: A scoping review

The role of residential history in cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship is garnering increasing attention in cancer research. To our knowledge, there is no comprehensive synthesis of the current state of knowledge in the field. We reviewed the extant literature on this topic and conducted a scoping analysis to examine two main research questions: (a) To what degree, and how, have researchers accounted for residential history/mobility in cancer research? and (b) What are the gaps in the literature based on a knowledge synthesis using scoping review and concept mapping? To answer these questions, this scoping analysis focuses on how researchers compile, analyze and discuss residential history/mobility in studies on cancer. The study is focused on peer-reviewed articles from 6 different datasets (PubMed, Cinahl, Scopus, Web of Science and JSTOR, ERIC) from 1990 to August 2020. The review captured 1951 results in total, which was scoped to 281 relevant peer-reviewed journal articles. First, we examined these articles based on cancer continuum, cancer type and the main theme. Second, we identified 21 main themes and an additional 16 sub-themes in the pool of the selected articles. We utilized concept mapping to provide a conceptual framework and to highlight the underlying socioecological assumptions and paradigms. Results show that cancer research incorporating residential histories is primarily focused on incidence and estimating cumulative exposure, with little consideration across the cancer continuum. Additionally, our review suggests that although the social environment plays an important role across the cancer continuum, a small number of articles were focused on such factors and this area remains relatively unexplored. Additionally, the expansion of interdisciplinary research on residential mobility before and after cancer diagnosis will enhance understanding of the role of environmental and socioeconomic characteristics and exposures on cancer continuum.

Lockdown and unlock for the COVID-19 pandemic and associated residential mobility in India

BACKGROUND

As an outcome of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the countrywide lockdown and unlock periods altered residential mobility trends in India. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown and unlock periods on residential mobility trends, using the spatial time-series daily changes across the different states and union territories of India.

DATA AND METHODS

This study was based on time-series data of the daily percentage change in residential mobility from baseline in India. Conditional formatting techniques, box plotting, time-series trends plotting methods, and spatial kriging interpolation mapping techniques were employed to show residential mobility trends.

RESULTS

Increases in residential mobility of approximately 31.5%, 30.8%, 26.2%, 23%, 17.6%, and 18.2% from the pre-lockdown period were observed during lockdown phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, and phase 4, unlock 1.0, and unlock 2.0, respectively, in India. This was due to people moving towards home or their place of residence during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. From the time lockdown was initiated up until July 31, 2020, residential mobility increased the least in the north-eastern states of India and also the eastern and extreme northern states of India.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study could be used in public health strategies towards decreasing the spread of COVID-19.

Residential mobility among adult cancer survivors in the United States

BACKGROUND

While residential mobility affects people's health, the dynamic of neighborhood tenure and its associated factors among cancer patients and survivors have not been studied in detail. This cross-sectional study aimed to identify sociodemographic factors associated with neighborhood tenure and relocation after the first cancer diagnosis among U.S. adult cancer survivors and patients.

METHODS

Based on a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized civilian adults (≥18 years, n = 185,637) from the 2013-2018 National Health Interview Survey, we compared neighborhood tenure between adults with and without a history of cancer, and identified factors associated with their neighborhood tenure and relocation after the first cancer diagnosis, using propensity score matching, and logistic regression models with survey design incorporated.

RESULTS

Among adults with cancer (9.0%), 39.6% had a neighborhood tenure ≤10 years (vs. 61.2% among those without cancer), and 25.6% (equivalent to 5.4 million) relocated after their first cancer diagnosis. The odds of having shorter neighborhood tenure was higher among the cancer group in the propensity-matched samples (odds ratio = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.05-1.06; n = 17,259). Among cancer survivors, the odds of neighborhood relocation were negatively associated with increasing age, perceived neighborhood social cohesion, having high school level education, and being married; while positively associated with having family income below the poverty threshold, being uninsured, and living in non-Northeast regions.

CONCLUSIONS

High residential mobility was found among a sizable proportion of adults with a history of cancer, and was associated with multiple socioeconomic factors. Incorporating and addressing modifiable risk factors associated with residential mobility among cancer patients and survivors may offer new intervention opportunities to improve cancer care delivery and reduce cancer disparities.

Greenery exposure and suicide mortality later in life: A longitudinal register-based case-control study

BACKGROUND

Exposure to residential greenery accumulates over people's lifetimes, and possibly has a protective association with suicide later in life.

OBJECTIVES

To examine the associations between suicide mortality and long-term residential greenery exposure in male and female adults.

METHODS

Our population-based nested case-control study used longitudinally georeferenced Dutch register data. Suicide cases aged 18-64 years between 2007 and 2016 were matched by gender, age, and date of suicide to 10 random controls. We measured long-term greenery exposure along people's 10-year residential address histories through longitudinal normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI) from Landsat satellite imagery between 1997 and 2016. We assigned accumulated greenery exposures, weighted by people's exposure duration, within 300, 600, and 1,000 m concentric buffers around home addresses. To assess associations between suicide and greenery, we estimated gender-specific conditional logistic regressions without and with adjustment for individual-level and area-level confounders. Stratified models were fitted for areas with a high/low level of urbanicity and movers/non-movers.

RESULTS

Our study population consisted of 9,757 suicide cases and 95,641 controls. In our models adjusted for age, gender, and date of suicide, the odds ratios decreased significantly with higher quartiles of accumulated NDVI scores. NDVI associations were attenuated and did not remain significant after adjustment for socioeconomics, urbanicity, air pollution, social fragmentation, etc. for either males or females. For females, but not males, our model with 300 m buffers for areas with a low level of urbanicity showed a significant suicide risk reduction with increasing levels of NDVI. Individual risk factors (e.g., lack of labor market participation) outweighed the contribution of greenery.

CONCLUSION

We found limited evidence that long-term greenery exposure over people's lifetimes contributes to resilience against suicide mortality. Ensuring exposure to greenery may contribute to suicide prevention for specific population groups, but the effectiveness of such exposure should not be overstated.

Neighborhood Predictors of Outpatient Mental Health Visits Among Persons With Comorbid Medical and Serious Mental Illnesses

OBJECTIVE

Individuals with serious mental illnesses are at risk of receiving inadequate outpatient mental health services, increasing the likelihood of medication nonadherence, readmission, and self-harm. The purpose of this study was to identify individual- and neighborhood-level factors associated with outpatient mental health visits.

METHODS

This study included 418 participants from two randomized trials of patients with comorbid medical conditions and serious mental illnesses across two study sites between 2011 and 2017. On the basis of individual addresses, data were collected about participants' distance to the nearest mental health facility and 13 neighborhood characteristics from the American Community Survey. Three neighborhood-level factors were derived from factor analysis. Poisson regression was used to assess associations between individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics and the number of visits to mental health providers. Known individual-level risk factors for outpatient follow-up were mutually adjusted in a model with neighborhood covariates added.

RESULTS

Male gender, older age, unemployment, and lower education level were associated with less outpatient mental health service utilization. Neighborhood-level residential mobility, defined as the combination of percentage of residents living in a different house in the past year and percentage of non-owner-occupied housing, was significantly associated with fewer mental health service visits even after controlling for other neighborhood- and individual-level factors.

CONCLUSIONS

Among individuals with comorbid medical conditions and serious mental illnesses, living in neighborhoods with higher residential mobility was associated with fewer visits to outpatient mental health providers. This finding suggests the importance of recognizing social conditions that may shape clinical interactions.

The distance to death perceptions of older adults explain why they age in place: A theoretical examination

Older persons prefer to age in place or stay put in their current dwellings and move less frequently than any other age group. However, current residential mobility theories do not fully account for these preferences and behaviors because they focus on why older people move rather than on why they remain in their dwellings and do not consider the temporal or human developmental context of these residential decisions. It is essential to understand why older persons are reluctant to move because their ability to age successfully-have healthy, independent, active, and enjoyable lives-depends on where they live. When they stay put, they also rely more on family caregivers and paid home care providers to maintain their independence, rather than on the supportive services offered by senior group facilities, such as assisted living. They demand more home modification and financial service products, and their residential decisions influence the supply of housing that younger populations can potentially buy or rent. This paper's theoretical analysis proposes that Carstensen's socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), a lifespan theory of motivation, improves our understanding of why older persons age in place-either in their dwellings or more broadly in their communities. It offers an alternative interpretation of how life-changing events, such as retirement, lower incomes, spousal death, physical limitations, and health declines, influence their residential decisions. Whereas residential mobility theories view these transitions as disruptions that change the appropriateness or congruence of where older people live, SST proposes that older persons perceive these events as signs or cues that they are closer to death and must differently prioritize their goals and emotional experiences. Feeling their time is "running out," older persons are motivated to stay put because moving requires preparations that are physically and emotionally trying and they are able to adapt to their current housing shortcomings. Their residential environments are now also a source of difficult-to-replace positive emotions and provide them with a supportive network of intimate and reliable interpersonal relationships. It is challenging for them to learn how to safely and efficiently conduct their usual activities and routines in another location and to establish new residential attachments and social connections. They would benefit from any net positive emotional payoffs only in a distant future, an unattractive prospect when they perceive a limited time left to live. Empirical studies must test the theoretical propositions presented in this paper. However, the disproportionally large projected future growth of the age 75 and older population with a heightened awareness of their limited time left to live should be a strong rationale for such investigations.

Residential mobility mindset enhances temporal discounting in the loss framework

With the internationalization of human society, population mobility has greatly increased, which can affect people's psychological states and behaviors. Research on residential mobility is burgeoning, but few studies have linked this topic to decision making, particularly temporal discounting, in which individuals generally discount future gains and losses. In Study 1, we manipulated individuals' residential mobility and stability and found that residential mobility heightened temporal discounting. In Study 2, which was designed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying this relationship, the participants gambled between two pictures and received temporal-related feedback, including gain and loss, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The results showed that the main effect of temporal discounting was reflected in the feedback-related negativity (FRN) component in the 180-340 ms time window. Additionally, the participants primed with mobility rather than stability exhibited a significant difference in FRN over the right-central electrodes between present and future large-amount losses but not between present and future large-amount or small-amount gains. Study 3 revealed that residential mobility increased the participant's sense of uncertainty, thereby enhancing temporal discounting. In conclusion, the current research reveals that residential mobility enhances temporal discounting by modulating the neural processes involved in evaluating monetary loss and by increasing the individual's sense of uncertainty. This research suggests that socioecological factors play important roles in individuals' intertemporal decisions.

Household Accessibility and Residential Relocation in Older Adults

OBJECTIVES

It is unclear how home environmental factors influence relocation decisions. We examined whether indoor accessibility, entrance accessibility, bathroom safety features, housing type, and housing condition were associated with relocations either within the community or to residential care facilities.

METHODS

We used prospective data over 4 years from the nationally representative National Health and Aging Trends Study in the United States of Medicare beneficiaries 65 years and older living in the community (N = 7,197). We used multinomial regression analysis with survey weights.

RESULTS

Over the 4 years, 8.2% of the population moved within the community, and 3.9% moved to residential care facilities. After adjusting for demographics and health factors, poor indoor accessibility was found to be associated with moves within the community but not to residential care facilities. No additional home environmental factors were associated with relocation.

DISCUSSION

One-floor dwellings, access to a lift, or having a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom on the same floor may help older adults age in place. Understanding which modifiable home environmental factors trigger late-life relocation, and to where, has practical implications for developing policies and programs to help older adults age in their place of choice.

Separation and Elevated Residential Mobility: A Cross-Country Comparison

This study investigates the magnitude and persistence of elevated post-separation residential mobility (i.e. residential instability) in five countries (Australia, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK) with similar levels of economic development, but different welfare provisions and housing markets. While many studies examine residential changes related to separation in selected individual countries, only very few have compared patterns across countries. Using longitudinal data and applying Poisson regression models, we study the risk of a move of separated men and women compared with cohabiting and married individuals. We use time since separation to distinguish between moves due to separation and moves of separated individuals. Our analysis shows that separated men and women are significantly more likely to move than cohabiting and married individuals. The risk of a residential change is the highest shortly after separation, and it decreases with duration since separation. However, the magnitude of this decline varies by country. In Belgium, mobility rates remain elevated for a long period after separation, whereas in the Netherlands, post-separation residential instability appears brief, with mobility rates declining rapidly. The results suggest that housing markets are likely to shape the residential mobility of separated individuals. In countries, where mortgages are easy to access and affordable rental properties are widespread, separated individuals can rapidly adjust their housing to new family circumstances; in contrast, in countries with limited access to homeownership and small social rental markets, separated individuals experience a prolonged period of residential instability.

Residential mobility and chronic disease among World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees, 2004-2016

Residential mobility is hypothesized to impact health through changes to the built environment and disruptions in social networks, and may vary by neighborhood deprivation exposure. However, there are few longitudinal investigations of residential mobility in relation to health outcomes. This study examined enrollees from the World Trade Center Health Registry, a longitudinal cohort of first responders and community members in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Enrollees who completed ≥2 health surveys between 2004 and 2016 and did not have diabetes (N = 44,089) or hypertension (N = 35,065) at baseline (i.e., 2004) were included. Using geocoded annual home addresses, residential mobility was examined using two indicators: moving frequency and displacement. Moving frequency was defined as the number of times someone was recorded as living in a different neighborhood; displacement as any moving to a more disadvantaged neighborhood. We fit adjusted Cox proportional hazards models with time-dependent exposures (moving frequency and displacement) and covariates to evaluate associations with incident diabetes and hypertension. From 2004 to 2016, the majority of enrollees never moved (54.5%); 6.5% moved ≥3 times. Those who moved ≥3 times had a similar hazard of diabetes (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.78; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.40, 1.53) and hypertension (HR = 0.99; 95% CI: 0.68, 1.43) compared with those who never moved. Similarly, displacement was not associated with diabetes or hypertension. Residential mobility was not associated with diabetes or hypertension among a cohort of primarily urban-dwelling adults.

Choice Set Formation in Residential Mobility and Its Implications for Segregation Dynamics

We develop and estimate a statistical model of neighborhood choice that draws on insights from cognitive science and decision theory as well as qualitative studies of housing search. The model allows for a sequential decision process and the possibility that people consider a small and selective subset of all potential destinations. When combined with data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, our model reveals that affordability constraints and households' tendency toward short-distance moves lead blacks and Hispanics to have racially stratified choice sets in which their own group is disproportionately represented. We use an agent-based model to assess how racially stratified choice sets contribute to segregation outcomes. Our results show that cognitive decision strategies can amplify patterns of segregation and inequality.

Forced to move: Patterns and predictors of residential displacement during an era of housing insecurity

Recent work on residential displacement-being forced out of one's home-hints that its nature and prevalence have changed during the early twenty-first century. We evaluate this supposition against the backdrop of past displacement research. Reason-for-move data from seven waves of the American Housing Survey (2001-2013) are used to construct displacement measures that range from narrow (limited to forced moves prompted by government or private action or disaster loss) to broad (also including eviction and foreclosure). Our analysis shows that, regardless of measure, no consistent upward trend over time is apparent in the small percentage of mobile households experiencing displacement, although as many as 3.6 million individuals may be affected biennially. We also find that longstanding socioeconomic, racial, and other disparities in displacement persist but tend to be of modest magnitude. Such patterns could contribute to a perception of displacement as socially unpredictable, further heightening public concern about the issue.

Kin location and racial disparities in exiting and entering poor neighborhoods

Blacks and Latinos/as are less likely than Whites to move from a poor neighborhood to a non-poor neighborhood and are more likely to move in the reverse direction. Using individual-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1980-2013) and neighborhood-level census data, this study explores the role that the spatial location of familial kin networks plays in explaining these racially and ethnically disparate mobility patterns. Blacks and Latinos/as live closer than Whites to nuclear kin, and they are also more likely than Whites to have kin members living in poor neighborhoods. Close geographic proximity to kin and higher levels of kin neighborhood poverty inhibit moving from a poor to a non-poor neighborhood, and increase the risk of moving from a non-poor to a poor tract. Racial/ethnic differences in kin proximity and kin neighborhood poverty explain a substantial portion of racial gaps in exiting and entering poor neighborhoods.

Residential Mobility Fosters Sensitivity to the Disappearance of Happiness

We conducted two studies to examine the hypothesis that residential mobility would evoke anxiety and foster sensitivity to signs of disapproval, such as the disappearance of happiness. American and Japanese participants were asked to watch happy-to-neutral movies and sad-to-neutral movies and judge the point at which they thought that their initial expressions had disappeared. We found that, regardless of cultures, participants who had experienced frequent moving (Study 1) and those asked to imagine and describe a mobile lifestyle of frequent moving (Study 2) judged the disappearance of happy faces faster than those who did not experience or imagine frequent moving. Our results were also in line with the previous finding in which Japanese were more vigilant than Americans in regards to the disappearance of happy faces. Moreover, we found that imagining a mobile lifestyle made participants feel more concerned than when imagining a stable lifestyle. The implications for the social skills needed for people in the globalising world are discussed.

Residential mobility in early childhood and the impact on misclassification in pesticide exposures

Studies of environmental exposures and childhood cancers that rely on records often only use maternal address at birth or address at cancer diagnosis to assess exposures in early childhood, possibly leading to exposure misclassification and questionable validity due to residential mobility during early childhood. Our objective was to assess patterns and identify factors that may predict residential mobility in early childhood, and examine the impact of mobility on early childhood exposure assessment for agriculturally applied pesticides and childhood cancers in California. We obtained the addresses at diagnosis of all childhood cancer cases born in 1998-2011 and diagnosed at 0-5 years of age (n = 6478) from the California Cancer Registry (CCR), and their birth addresses from linked birth certificates. Controls were randomly selected from California birth records and frequency matched (20:1) to all cases by year of birth. We obtained residential histories from a public-record database LexisNexis for both case (n = 3877 with age at diagnosis 1-5 years) and control (n = 99,262) families. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the socio-demographic factors in relation to residential mobility in early childhood. We employed a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based system to estimate children's first year of life exposures to agriculturally applied pesticides based on birth vs diagnosis address or residential histories based upon Lexis-Nexis Public Records and assessed agreement between exposure measures using Spearman correlations and kappa statistics. Over 20% of case and control children moved in their first year of life, and 55% of children with cancer moved between birth and diagnosis. Older age at diagnosis, younger maternal age, lower maternal education, not having a Hispanic ethnic background, use of public health insurance, and non-metropolitan residence at birth were predictors of higher residential mobility. There was moderate to strong correlation (Spearman correlation = 0.76-0.83) and good agreement (kappa = 0.75-0.81) between the first year of life exposure estimates for agricultural pesticides applied within 2 km of a residence relying on an address at birth or at diagnosis or LexisNexis addresses; this did not differ by outcome status, but agreement decreased with decreasing buffer size, and increasing distance moved or age at diagnosis. These findings suggest that residential addresses collected at one point in time may represent residential history in early childhood to a reasonable extent; nevertheless, they exposure misclassification in the first year of life remains an issue. Also, the highest proportion of women not captured by LexisNexis were Hispanic women born in Mexico and those living in the lowest SES neighborhoods, i.e. possibly those with the higher environmental exposures, as well as younger women and those with less than high school education. Though LexisNexis only captures a sub-population, its data may be useful for augmenting address information and assessing the extent of exposure misclassification when estimating environmental exposures in large record linkage studies. Future research should investigate how to correct for exposure misclassification introduced by residential mobility that is not being captured by records.

The sensitivity of reported effects of EMF on childhood leukemia to uncontrolled confounding by residential mobility: a hybrid simulation study and an empirical analysis using CAPS data

PURPOSE

Residential mobility is considered as a potential source of confounding in studies assessing environmental exposures, including in studies of electromagnetic field (EMF) exposures and childhood leukemia.

METHODS

We present a hybrid simulation study where we simulate a synthetic dataset based on an existing study and use it to assess the sensitivity of EMF-leukemia associations to different scenarios of uncontrolled confounding by mobility under two major hypotheses of the infectious etiology of childhood leukemia. We then used the findings to conduct sensitivity analysis and empirically offset the potential bias due to unmeasured mobility in the California Power Line Study dataset.

RESULTS

As expected, the stronger the assumed relationship between mobility and exposure and outcome, the greater the potential bias. However, no scenario created a bias strong enough to completely explain away previously observed associations.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that uncontrolled confounding by residential mobility had some impact on the estimated effect of EMF exposures on childhood leukemia, but that it was unlikely to be the primary explanation behind previously observed largely consistent, but unexplained associations.

The Moving to Health (M2H) approach to natural experiment research: A paradigm shift for studies on built environment and health

Improving the built environment (BE) is viewed as one strategy to improve community diets and health. The present goal is to review the literature on the effects of BE on health, highlight its limitations, and explore the growing use of natural experiments in BE research, such as the advent of new supermarkets, revitalized parks, or new transportation systems. Based on recent studies on movers, a paradigm shift in built-environment health research may be imminent. Following the classic Moving to Opportunity study in the US, the present Moving to Health (M2H) strategy takes advantage of the fact that changing residential location can entail overnight changes in multiple BE variables. The necessary conditions for applying the M2H strategy to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases and to large longitudinal cohorts are outlined below. Also outlined are significant limitations of this approach, including the use of electronic medical records in lieu of survey data. The key research question is whether documented changes in BE exposure can be linked to changes in health outcomes in a causal manner. The use of geo-localized clinical information from regional health care systems should permit new insights into the social and environmental determinants of health.

Trends and drug-related correlates in residential mobility among young adults in the United States, 2003-2016

INTRODUCTION

Young adulthood, typically conceptualized as stretching from the late teens to the mid-twenties, is a period of elevated risk for residential mobility (i.e., moving or changing residences frequently) and drug involvement. However, our understanding of the trends and drug-related correlates of residential mobility among young adults remains limited.

METHODS

We analyzed national trend data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2003-2016) on residential mobility and drug involvement among young adults (N = 230,790) in the United States. For tests of trend, we conducted logistic regression analyses with survey year specified as a continuous independent variable and residential mobility as the dependent variable (no/yes), controlling for sociodemographic factors.

RESULTS

The prevalence of residential mobility was stable among females, but decreased significantly-a 20% reduction in the relative proportion of respondents-among males during the study period (AOR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.97-0.99). Male and female young adults reporting residential mobility were significantly more likely to report involvement in all drug-related outcomes examined, but effects were larger among females for drug selling and drug-related arrests.

DISCUSSION

Study findings show that a substantial minority of young adults experience residential mobility and that, while rates are declining among young men, the experience of mobility is connected with risk for drug involvement, particularly among females. Mobility may be an important target for drug prevention/intervention efforts, but further research is needed to provide insight into how mobility and drug involvement are connected in the lives of young adults.

The Relationship Between Residential Mobility and Behavioral Health Service Use in a National Sample of Adults With Mental Health and/or Substance Abuse Problems

OBJECTIVE

Individuals with mental health and/or substance abuse problems experience disparities in health care utilization. While previous studies have focused on individual and social determinants of health care use in these populations, few have investigated the role of residential stability, especially in relation to different types of service use (i.e., inpatient vs. outpatient treatment). The present study examined the relationship between residential mobility, defined as the number of residential relocations in the past year, and past-year use of four types of behavioral services (i.e., inpatient and outpatient mental health services, inpatient and outpatient substance abuse services) among a national sample of adults with mental health and/or substance abuse problems.

METHODS

Data were drawn from the 2011-2014 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (unweighted N = 43,411). Based on prior literature and theory, we hypothesized that individuals who frequently relocate are more likely to use inpatient services and are less likely to use outpatient services. Logistic regression analyses were conducted and all models controlled for predisposing, need, and enabling factors.

RESULTS

Compared to individuals who did not move in the past year, those who moved three or more times were more likely to report using inpatient mental health and substance abuse services. The relationship between residential mobility and outpatient mental health and substance use service use is not significant.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight the importance of understanding housing stability as a predictor factor of service use and access. Future research is needed to shed light on the pathway through which residential mobility affects behavioral health service utilization.

Racial Differences in Neighborhood Attainment: The Contributions of Interneighborhood Migration and In Situ Change

Recent research shows that as they age, blacks experience less improvement than whites in the socioeconomic status of their residential neighborhoods. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and U.S. decennial censuses, we assess the relative contribution of residential mobility and in situ neighborhood change (i.e., change surrounding nonmobile neighborhood residents) to the black-white difference in changes in neighborhood socioeconomic status and racial composition. Results from decomposition analyses show that the racial difference in in situ neighborhood change explains virtually all the black-white difference in neighborhood socioeconomic status change. In contrast, racial differences in residential mobility explain the bulk of the black-white difference in neighborhood racial compositional change. Among blacks and whites initially residing in low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods, whites experience a much greater increase than blacks in the socioeconomic status of their neighborhoods and the percentage of their neighbors who are non-Hispanic white. These differences are driven primarily by racial differences in the economic and racial composition of local (intracounty) movers' destination neighborhoods and secondarily by black-white differences in the likelihood of moving long distances.

Residential mobility of pregnant women and implications for assessment of spatially-varying environmental exposures

Health studies on spatially-varying exposures (e.g., air pollution) during pregnancy often estimate exposure using residence at birth, disregarding residential mobility. We investigated moving patterns in pregnant women (n = 10,116) in linked cohorts focused on Connecticut and Massachusetts, U.S., 1988-2008. Moving patterns were assessed by race/ethnicity, age, marital status, education, working status, population density, parity, income, and season of birth. In this population, 11.6% of women moved during pregnancy. Movers were more likely to be younger, unmarried, and living in urban areas with no previous children. Among movers, multiple moves were more likely for racial/ethnic minority, younger, less educated, unmarried, and lower income women. Most moves occurred later in pregnancy, with 87.4% of first moves in the second or third trimester, although not all cohort subjects enrolled in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Distance between first and second residence had a median value of 5.2 km (interquartile range 11.3 km, average 57.8 km, range 0.0-4277 km). Women moving larger distances were more likely to be white, older, married, and work during pregnancy. Findings indicate that residential mobility may impact studies of spatially-varying exposure during pregnancy and health and that subpopulations vary in probability of moving, and timing and distance of moves.

Residential mobility during pregnancy in Urban Gansu, China

BACKGROUND

Studies on environmental exposures during pregnancy commonly use maternal residence at time of delivery, which may result in exposure misclassification and biased estimates of exposure and disease association. Studies on residential mobility during pregnancy are needed in various populations to aid studies of the environmental exposure and birth outcomes. However, there is still a lack of studies investigating residential mobility patterns in Asian populations.

METHODS

We analyzed data from 10,542 pregnant women enrolled in a birth cohort study in Lanzhou, China (2010-2012), a major industrial city. Multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate residential mobility patterns in relation to maternal complications and birth outcomes.

RESULTS

Of the participants, 546 (5.2%) moved during pregnancy; among those who moved, 40.5%, 34.8%, and 24.7% moved during the first, second, and third trimester, respectively. Most movers (97.3%) moved once with a mean distance of 3.75 km (range: 1-109 km). More than half (66.1%) of the movers moved within 3 km, 13.9% moved 3-10 km, and 20.0% moved > 10 km. Pregnant women who were > 30 years or multiparous, or who had maternal complications were less likely to have moved during pregnancy. In addition, movers were less likely to deliver infants with birth defects, preterm births, and low birth weight.

CONCLUSIONS

Residential mobility was significantly associated with several maternal characteristics and complications during pregnancy. The study also showed a lower likelihood of adverse birth outcomes among movers than non-movers, suggesting that moving might be related to reduce exposure to environmental hazards. These results confirm the hypothesis that residential mobility may be important with respect to exposure misclassification and that this misclassification may vary by subpopulations.

Gentrification and binge drinking in California neighborhoods: It matters how long you've lived there

BACKGROUND

Neighborhood context plays a role in binge drinking, a behavior with major health and economic costs. Gentrification, the influx of capital and residents of higher socioeconomic status into historically-disinvested neighborhoods, is a growing trend with the potential to place urban communities under social and financial pressure. Hypothesizing that these pressures and other community changes resulting from gentrification could be tied to excessive alcohol consumption, we examined the relationship between gentrification and binge drinking in California neighborhoods.

METHODS

California census tracts were categorized as non-gentrifiable, stable (gentrifiable), or gentrifying from 2006 to 2015. Outcomes and covariates were obtained from the California Health Interview Survey using combined 2013-2015 data (n = 60,196). Survey-weighted logistic regression tested for associations between gentrification and any binge drinking in the prior 12 months. Additional models tested interactions between gentrification and other variables of interest, including housing tenure, federal poverty level, race/ethnicity, sex, and duration of neighborhood residence.

RESULTS

A third of respondents reported past-year binge drinking. Controlling for demographic covariates, gentrification was not associated with binge drinking in the population overall (AOR = 1.13, 95% CI = 0.95-1.34), but was associated with binge drinking among those living in the neighborhood <5 years (AOR = 1.49, 95% CI 1.15-1.93). No association was seen among those living in their neighborhood ≥5 years.

CONCLUSIONS

For those newer to their neighborhood, gentrification is associated with binge drinking. Further understanding the relationship between gentrification and high-risk alcohol use is important for policy and public health interventions mitigating the impact of this process.

Residential mobility and childhood leukemia

AIMS

Studies of environmental exposures and childhood leukemia studies do not usually account for residential mobility. Yet, in addition to being a potential risk factor, mobility can induce selection bias, confounding, or measurement error in such studies. Using data collected for California Powerline Study (CAPS), we attempt to disentangle the effect of mobility.

METHODS

We analyzed data from a population-based case-control study of childhood leukemia using cases who were born in California and diagnosed between 1988 and 2008 and birth certificate controls. We used stratified logistic regression, case-only analysis, and propensity-score adjustments to assess predictors of residential mobility between birth and diagnosis, and account for potential confounding due to residential mobility.

RESULTS

Children who moved tended to be older, lived in housing other than single-family homes, had younger mothers and fewer siblings, and were of lower socioeconomic status. Odds ratios for leukemia among non-movers living <50 meters (m) from a 200+ kilovolt line (OR: 1.62; 95% CI: 0.72-3.65) and for calculated fields ≥ 0.4 microTesla (OR: 1.71; 95% CI: 0.65-4.52) were slightly higher than previously reported overall results. Adjustments for propensity scores based on all variables predictive of mobility, including dwelling type, increased odds ratios for leukemia to 2.61 (95% CI: 1.76-3.86) for living < 50 m from a 200 + kilovolt line and to 1.98 (1.11-3.52) for calculated fields. Individual or propensity-score adjustments for all variables, except dwelling type, did not materially change the estimates of power line exposures on childhood leukemia.

CONCLUSION

The residential mobility of childhood leukemia cases varied by several sociodemographic characteristics, but not by the distance to the nearest power line or calculated magnetic fields. Mobility appears to be an unlikely explanation for the associations observed between power lines exposure and childhood leukemia.

Beyond residential mobility: A broader conceptualization of instability and its impact on victimization risk among children

Predictability in a child's environment is a critical quality of safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments, which promote wellbeing and protect against maltreatment. Research has focused on residential mobility's effect on this predictability. This study augments such research by analyzing the impact of an instability index-including the lifetime destabilization factors (LDFs) of natural disasters, homelessness, child home removal, multiple moves, parental incarceration, unemployment, deployment, and multiple marriages--on childhood victimizations. The cross-sectional, nationally representative sample of 12,935 cases (mean age = 8.6 years) was pooled from 2008, 2011, and 2014 National Surveys of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV). Logistic regression models controlling for demographics, socio-economic status, and family structure tested the association between excessive residential mobility, alone, and with LDFs, and past year childhood victimizations (sexual victimization, witnessing community or family violence, maltreatment, physical assault, property crime, and polyvictimization). Nearly 40% of the sample reported at least one LDF. Excessive residential mobility was significantly predictive of increased odds of all but two victimizations; almost all associations were no longer significant after other destabilizing factors were included. The LDF index without residential mobility was significantly predictive of increased odds of all victimizations (AOR's ranged from 1.36 to 1.69), and the adjusted odds ratio indicated a 69% increased odds of polyvictimization for each additional LDF a child experienced. The LDF index thus provides a useful alternative to using residential moves as the sole indicator of instability. These findings underscore the need for comprehensive supports and services to support stability for children and families.

Developmental effects of childhood household adversity, transitions, and relationship quality on adult outcomes of socioeconomic status: Effects of substantiated child maltreatment

The degree to which child maltreatment interacts with other household adversities to exacerbate risk for poor adult socioeconomic outcomes is uncertain. Moreover, the effects of residential, school, and caregiver transitions during childhood on adult outcomes are not well understood. This study examined the relation between household adversity and transitions in childhood with adult income problems, education, and unemployment in individuals with or without a childhood maltreatment history. The potential protective role of positive relationship quality in buffering these risk relationships was also tested. Data were from the Lehigh Longitudinal Study (n = 457), where subjects were assessed at preschool, elementary, adolescent, and adult ages. Multiple group path analysis tested the relationships between childhood household adversity; residential, school, and caregiver transitions; and adult socioeconomic outcomes for each group. Caregiver relationship quality was included as a moderator, and gender as a covariate. Household adversity was negatively associated with education level and positively associated with income problems for non-maltreated children only. For both groups, residential transitions was negatively associated with education level and caregiver transitions was positively associated with unemployment problems. Relationship quality was positively associated with education level only for non-maltreated children. For children who did not experience maltreatment, reducing exposure to household adversity is an important goal for prevention. Reducing exposure to child maltreatment for all children remains an important public health priority. Results underscore the need for programs and policies that promote stable relationships and environments.

Residential Mobility Across Early Childhood and Children's Kindergarten Readiness

Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing family, school, and neighborhood influences on child well-being. We examined the consequences of residential mobility for socioemotional and cognitive kindergarten readiness using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, a nationally representative longitudinal survey that followed U.S. children born in 2001 from infancy to kindergarten. We described individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0-5. Our residential mobility indicators examined frequency of moves, nonlinearities in move frequency, quality of moves, comparisons between moving houses and moving neighborhoods, and heterogeneity in the consequences of residential mobility. Nearly three-quarters of children moved by kindergarten start. Mobility did not predict cognitive scores. More moves, particularly at relatively high frequencies, predicted lower kindergarten behavior scores. Moves from socioeconomically advantaged to disadvantaged neighborhoods were especially problematic, whereas moves within a ZIP code were not. The implications of moves were similar across socioeconomic status. The behavior findings largely support an instability perspective that highlights potential disruptions from frequent or problematic moves. Our study contributes to literature emphasizing the importance of contextualizing residential mobility. The high prevalence and distinct implications of early childhood moves support the need for further research.

Gender and the Residential Mobility and Neighborhood Attainment of Black-White Couples

Including black-white couples in the study of residential stratification accentuates gendered power disparities within couples that favor men over women, which allows for the analysis of whether the race of male partners in black-white couples is associated with the racial and ethnic composition of their neighborhoods. I investigate this by combining longitudinal data between 1985 and 2015 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked to neighborhood- and metropolitan-level data compiled from four censuses. Using these data, I assess the mobility of black male-white female and white male-black female couples out of and into neighborhoods defined respectively by their levels of whites, blacks, and ethnoracial diversity. My results show that the race of the male partner in black-white couples tends to align with the racial and ethnic composition of the neighborhoods where these couples reside. This finding highlights that the racial hierarchy within the United States affects the residential mobility and attainment of black-white couples, but its influence is conditioned by the race and gender composition of these couples.

Influence of Proximity to Kin on Residential Mobility and Destination Choice: Examining Local Movers in Metropolitan Areas

A growing body of research has examined how family dynamics shape residential mobility, highlighting the social-as opposed to economic-drivers of mobility. However, few studies have examined kin ties as both push and pull factors in mobility processes or revealed how the influence of kin ties on mobility varies across sociodemographic groups. Using data on local residential moves from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1980 to 2013, we find that location of noncoresident kin influences the likelihood of moving out of the current neighborhood and the selection of a new destination neighborhood. Analyses of out-mobility reveal that parents and young adult children living near each other as well as low-income adult children living near parents are especially deterred from moving. Discrete-choice models of neighborhood selection indicate that movers are particularly drawn to neighborhoods close to aging parents, white and higher-income households tend to move close to parents and children, and lower-income households tend to move close to extended family. Our results highlight the social and economic trade-offs that households face when making residential mobility decisions, which have important implications for broader patterns of inequality in residential attainment.

Housing Experiences among Opioid-Dependent, Criminal Justice-Involved Individuals in Washington, D.C

Residential mobility and type of housing contributes to an individual's likelihood and frequency of drug/alcohol use and committing criminal offenses. Little research has focused simultaneously on the influence of housing status on the use of drugs and criminal behavior. The present study examines how residential mobility (transitions in housing) and recent housing stability (prior 30 days) correlates with self-reported criminal activity and drug/alcohol use among a sample of 504 addicted, treatment-seeking opioid users with a history of criminal justice involvement. Findings suggest that those with a greater number of housing transitions were considerably less likely to self-report criminal activity, and criminal involvement was highest among those who were chronically homeless. Residential mobility was unassociated with days of drug and alcohol use; however, residing in regulated housing (halfway houses and homeless shelters) was associated with a decreased frequency of substance use. The finding that residing at sober-living housing facilities with regulations governing behavior (regulated housing) was associated with a lower likelihood of illicit substance use may suggest that regulated housing settings may influence behavior. Further research in this area should explore how social networks and other related variables moderate the effects of housing type and mobility on crime and substance use.

Finding Home: A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Adolescent Mothers' Housing Instability

Many low-income Latina adolescent mothers face instability in their housing circumstances, which has implications for their long-term prospects and that of their children. This study used longitudinal, ethnographic data from Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study to explore experiences of low-income, Latina adolescent mothers (N = 15) with unstable housing who primarily rely on their families or the families of their significant others for housing support. Results of analysis employing grounded theory and narrative approaches suggested two types of instability: "Horizontal moves" between family homes and "vertical moves" between family homes and independent living. Although family support often was fundamental in allowing for participants' pursuit of independent housing (i.e., vertical moves), it also was associated with greater residential mobility (i.e., horizontal moves), most often in the context of intrafamilial conflict and family instability. These results are discussed with respect to inconsistencies in policies to address this vulnerable population.