Associations of Neighborhood Crime and Safety and With Changes in Body Mass Index and Waist Circumference
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), we evaluated associations of neighborhood crime and safety with changes in adiposity (body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference). MESA is a longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease among adults aged 45-84 years at baseline in 2000-2002, from 6 US sites, with follow-up for MESA participants until 2012. Data for this study were limited to Chicago, Illinois, participants in the MESA Neighborhood Ancillary Study, for whom police-recorded crime data were available, and who had complete baseline data (n = 673). We estimated associations of individual-level safety, aggregated neighborhood-level safety, and police-recorded crime with baseline levels and trajectories of BMI and waist circumference over time using linear mixed modeling with random effects. We also estimated how changes in these factors related to changes in BMI and waist circumference using econometric fixed-effects models. At baseline, greater individual-level safety was associated with more adiposity. Increasing individual- and neighborhood-level safety over time were associated with decreasing BMI over the 10-year period, with a more pronounced effect observed in women for individual-level safety and men for neighborhood-level safety. Police-recorded crime was not associated with adiposity. Neighborhood-level safety likely influences adiposity change and subsequent cardiovascular risk in multiethnic populations.
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology
DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwx082
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,856
Funders: Northwestern University, Drexel University, Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Feinberg School of Medicine, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Center for Research Resources, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, NHLBI Division of Intramural Research
Awards: G1017297203, G1225203148, G1261793039, G1409423729, G1922428914, G1948331958, SUBCLINICAL CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE STUDY--EBCT READING, G3041236093, G3647016462, G445457422, G4765588100, G536099884, Neighborhoods and Cardiovascular Risk in a Multiethnic Cohort, G5605591545, G5654179670, G5686942884, G7003760051, MESA, Michigan Center for Integrative Approaches to Health Disparities (CIAHD), G8698877469, G878552033, G8937114048, G9000031215, G9000065698, UNC Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility, G991334795
OpenAlex ID: W2611215365