Moving to Opportunity: Does long-term exposure to ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods make a difference for adolescents?

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.042

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 73, Issue 5, September 2011, Pages 737-743

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.042 Get rights and content

Abstract

This study re-analyzed data on adolescent health outcomes (N = 1780; M age = 15.15, SD = 2.30) from a 5-year evaluation of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Program. The MTO program is a randomized experiment conducted in five cities in the United States (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York) in which low-income families living in public housing in ‘high-poverty’ neighborhoods were offered vouchers and assistance to move to ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods. The objective was to reexamine program effects as a function of exposure to ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods to determine whether beneficial effects reported for girls’ mental health and behavior generalized to other outcomes for girls and to boys. As found in previous evaluations, girls in the MTO program group, whose families remained in ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods for comparatively long periods (approximately 5 years), had better mental health and engaged in fewer risky behaviors than a matched control sample of girls, whose families stayed in ‘high-poverty’ neighborhoods. Further, additional benefits for girls were seen in the education domain. Adverse program effects on boys’ behavior problems, reported in other MTO research using different methods, were not evident in our analysis. Findings suggest that programs relocating low-income families to ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods should provide supports to families and to receiving communities to promote residential stability and social integration.

Section snippets

Design and description of the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration

Baseline interviews were conducted with all MTO families from 1994 to 1999—prior to random assignment and relocation—with one adult family member identified as the head of household (N = 4608). During this interview, demographic information was obtained with limited data gathered on each household member including children. Approximately five to seven years after mover families had relocated, an interim evaluation was conducted in 2002 (N = 4248; 90% response rate). Extensive in-home,

Results

To facilitate comparison with previous MTO studies and provide benchmark estimates of program effects, we first replicated the interim findings with the current sample, and then examined LT-exposure program effects.

Discussion

The goal of this study was to reanalyze the MTO interim data to investigate the association between moving and staying in low-poverty neighborhoods, compared with remaining in high-poverty neighborhoods, and adolescent outcomes, to determine whether beneficial effects reported for experimental girls’ mental health and behavior generalized to their other outcomes and to boys. The results of propensity score analyses, which are a relatively unbiased approach for evaluating long-term exposure to

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the William T. Grant Foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for their support. Moving to Opportunity was funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Additional support was provided by the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (R01-HD40444), the National Science Foundation (0091854), the MacArthur Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. We are especially thankful to our

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Short reportMoving to Opportunity: Does long-term exposure to ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods make a difference for adolescents?

Abstract

Section snippets

Design and description of the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration

Results

Discussion

Acknowledgments

Health and Place

Implementing matching estimators for average treatment effects in Stata

The Stata Journal

Moving at-risk teenagers out of high-risk neighborhoods: Why girls fare better than boys

Reexamining the Moving to Opportunity study and its contribution to changing the distribution of poverty and ethnic concentration

Demography

HODGESL: Stata module to perform Hodges–Lehmann aligned rank test

Propensity score analysis: Statistical methods and applications

Optmatch: Flexible, optimal matching for observational studies

R News

Sustained effects of high participation in an early intervention for low-birth-weight premature infants

Developmental Psychology

Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress

Psychological Medicine

Short report
Moving to Opportunity: Does long-term exposure to ‘low-poverty’ neighborhoods make a difference for adolescents?