Why do poor people perceive poor neighbourhoods? The role of objective neighbourhood features and psychosocial factors

Abstract

Compared to people with a high socioeconomic status, those with a lower socioeconomic status are more likely to perceive their neighbourhood as unattractive and unsafe, which is associated with their lower levels of physical activity. Agreement between objective and perceived environmental factors is often found to be moderate or low, so it is questionable to what extent ‘creating supportive neighbourhoods’ would change neighbourhood perceptions. This study among residents (N=814) of fourteen neighbourhoods in the city of Eindhoven (the Netherlands), investigated to what extent socioeconomic differences in perceived neighbourhood safety and perceived neighbourhood attractiveness can be explained by five domains of objective neighbourhood features (i.e. design, traffic safety, social safety, aesthetics, and destinations), and to what extent other factors may play a role. Unfavourable neighbourhood perceptions of low socioeconomic groups partly reflected their actual less aesthetic and less safe neighbourhoods, and partly their perceptions of low social neighbourhood cohesion and adverse psychosocial circumstances.

Introduction

Increasing number of studies confirm that residents’ perceptions of their physical environment may be important for physical activity (Wendel-Vos et al., 2007). Environmental perceptions, such as perceived neighbourhood aesthetics and perceived safety, are associated with a wide range of physical activities (De Bourdeaudhuij et al., 2003, Duncan et al., 2005, McCormack et al., 2004), and contribute to the explanation of socioeconomic inequalities in physical inactivity (Ball et al., 2007, Kamphuis et al., 2008a, Kamphuis et al., 2009). These findings imply that effectively changing environmental perceptions, especially among lower socioeconomic groups, may contribute to an increase of physical activity and/or a reduction in socioeconomic inequalities in physical inactivity. However, little is known about the determinants of perceptions of the physical neighbourhood environment (hereafter: neighbourhood perceptions).

Studies that have investigated neighbourhood perceptions in association with physical activity often assume either implicitly or explicitly that these perceptions reflect actual, objective neighbourhood circumstances. This reasoning may sound obvious, and indeed, has empirical grounds: some studies have also found objective neighbourhood features to be associated with physical activity (Giles-Corti et al., 2005, Li et al., 2005, Saelens et al., 2003, Sallis et al., 1990), and to contribute to socioeconomic variations in physical activity (Kamphuis et al., 2008a; Van Lenthe et al., 2005). However, studies that have investigated the level of agreement between the objective and perceived neighbourhood, found this agreement to be moderate or low (Giles-Corti and Donovan, 2002, Hoehner et al., 2005, Kirtland et al., 2003, Kweon et al., 2006, McGinn et al., 2007, Troped et al., 2001). This suggests that factors other than the objective physical neighbourhood environment may play a role in the formation of residents’ neighbourhood perceptions. If this is the case, then “designing neighbourhoods to support physical activity” may not be enough to change residents’ perceptions, and with that, change their physical activity behaviour.

The scarce evidence for factors that determine how people perceive their physical environment mainly relates to (1) demographic factors, (2) perceptions of the social neighbourhood environment, (3) self-assessed health, and (4) depressed mood. Women, older people, and people with a lower socioeconomic position (SEP) are more likely to express feelings of unsafety, disorder, and neighbourhood problems than their male, younger and higher status counterparts (Ellaway et al., 2001; Green et al., 2002; Lindstrom et al., 2006; Lindstrom et al., 2003; Sampson and Raudenbush, 2004). Indicators of the social neighbourhood environment, such as social capital (i.e. taking part in activities of formal and informal groups in society) and social/community involvement, have shown strong inverse associations with fear of crime, sense of insecurity and perceived disorder (Green et al., 2002, Lindstrom et al., 2006, Lindstrom et al., 2003, Sampson and Raudenbush, 2004). Also, poor self-assessed health has shown associations with increased feelings of unsafety (Funk et al., 2007; Green et al., 2002; Lindstrom et al., 2006), as people with poorer health experience increased physical vulnerability, or may be more likely to be negative about life in general (Ellaway et al., 2001). For the latter reason, people with a pessimistic world view or depressed mood may also be more likely to report their neighbourhoods as being poor (Ellaway et al., 2001; Green et al., 2002). As low social capital (Lindstrom et al., 2001), poor health, and a pessimistic world view (Gallo and Matthews, 2003) have been found more prevalent in lower than higher socioeconomic groups, these factors may play a role in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups perceiving their neighbourhood as less attractive and less safe.

Thus, until now, there is little empirical evidence on correlates of neighbourhood perceptions, and even less on the contribution of objective neighbourhood and other factors to the explanation of socioeconomic differences in neighbourhood perceptions. Since perceived neighbourhood aesthetics and perceived safety have shown rather consistent associations with several physical activity outcomes (McCormack et al., 2004; Trost et al., 2002), and also contribute to socioeconomic inequalities in physical inactivity (Ball et al., 2007, Kamphuis et al., 2008b, Kamphuis et al., 2009), we selected these two neighbourhood perceptions to investigate which factors should be targeted to change perceptions.

We especially focus on explaining socioeconomic variations in neighbourhood perceptions, since it is important to find new entry points for interventions and policies to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in physical activity (and, ultimately, in health). Low SEP groups are in general less physically active than high SEP groups, and their perceptions of a less aesthetic and less safe neighbourhood may contribute to this (Ball et al., 2007, Kamphuis et al., 2008b, Kamphuis et al., 2009). On first sight, improving the aesthetics and safety of their neighbourhoods may sound as an obvious intervention to improve their physical activity levels. However, since other studies have shown that the agreement between perceived and objective neighbourhood factors is rather low (Giles-Corti and Donovan, 2002, Hoehner et al., 2005, Kirtland et al., 2003, Kweon et al., 2006, McGinn et al., 2007, Troped et al., 2001) and that low SEP groups may have a more pessimistic world view in general (which may also affect their perceptions of their neighbourhood environment) (Gallo and Matthews, 2003), it is likely that more may be needed to improve their neighbourhood perceptions than ‘just’ a more attractive neighbourhood environment. In this study, we look for those ‘other’ factors that may explain their more negative perceptions of their neighbourhood.

So, our main aim is to examine to what extent socioeconomic variations in perceived neighbourhood unattractiveness and unsafety can be explained by five domains of objective features (i.e. design, traffic safety, social safety, aesthetics, and destinations), and to what extent other factors, such as the perceived social neighbourhood environment and psychosocial characteristics, contribute to this explanation (see Fig. 1). Secondly, as the design of this study demands a multilevel analysis, we will also consider neighbourhood variance in perceptions and investigate whether these neighbourhood variations can be explained by objective neighbourhood features and other factors. Research questions that will be addressed are

• Are lower socioeconomic groups more likely to perceive their neighbourhood as unattractive and unsafe?

• Which objective neighbourhood features, perceived social neighbourhood factors and residents’ psychosocial characteristics are associated with perceptions of neighbourhood unattractiveness and unsafety?

• Which factors can explain socioeconomic differences and neighbourhood differences in perceived neighbourhood attractiveness and safety?