Elsevier

Health & Place

Volume 46, July 2017, Pages 155-174
Health & Place

Review Essay
A review of neighborhood effects and early child development: How, where, and for whom, do neighborhoods matter?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2017.04.012Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Socioeconomic status was the most studied neighborhood determinant.

  • 15 studies examined mediation (how); 22 examined moderation (where and for whom).

  • Neighborhood social-interactive mechanisms were the most common mediator.

  • Evidence on child- or neighborhood-level moderation effects were not conclusive.

  • A research agenda using longitudinal population-based data linkages is proposed.

Abstract

This paper describes a scoping review of 42 studies of neighborhood effects on developmental health for children ages 0–6, published between 2009 and 2014. It focuses on three themes: (1) theoretical mechanisms that drive early childhood development, i.e. how neighborhoods matter for early childhood development; (2) dependence of such mechanisms on place-based characteristics i.e. where neighborhood effects occur; (3) dependence of such mechanisms on child characteristics, i.e. for whom is development most affected. Given that ecological systems theories postulate diverse mechanisms via which neighborhood characteristics affect early child development, we specifically examine evidence on mediation and/or moderation effects. We conclude by discussing future challenges, and proposing recommendations for analyses that utilize ecological longitudinal population-based databases.

Keywords

Early child development
Neighborhood effects
Literature review
Mediation
Moderation

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