Research looks at neighborhoods and obesity in later life

Living in an affluent neighborhood with a higher educated population and higher valued homes may play a protective role against obesity for older men and women, according to UMDNJ researchers.

However, men residing in neighborhoods with a high immigrant concentration and women living in areas with little residential turnover may be more likely to be obese, they reported.

Those are some of the connections between "Neighborhoods and Obesity in Later Life" reported in a recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health by UMDNJ researchers who examined the relationship between the economic, built, and social aspects of neighborhoods and weight status among men and women ages 55 years and older. Their study was funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), one of the 27 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"Obesity is the result of an energy imbalance, and our premise was that neighborhood environment can affect caloric intake and expenditure," explained Irina B. Grafova, Ph.D., health economist and assistant professor in the Department of Health Systems and Policy at the UMDNJ-School of Public Health.

The researchers looked at the impact of safety and segregation, concentration of immigrants, air pollution, residential stability, connectivity, density or access, and neighborhood economic advantage and disadvantage on weight in older adults. They used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative survey of persons 50 years and older funded by the NIA, and derived information on neighborhood characteristics from several sources, including the 2000 U.S. Census; the 2000 Topology Integrated Geographic Encoding and Reference System, and the 2002 Economic Census.

"The results showed that the impact of neighborhood environment on weight status for older adults differ by gender, with economic and social environment factors being important for men and neighborhood build out structure being important for women," Grafova said.

Among their study results were the following findings:

• Economic advantage appeared to play a preventive role for obesity in both older men and women, but an economic disadvantage didn't seem to matter for older adults;
• Men living in neighborhoods with high immigrant concentration are more likely to be obese;
• Women with little neighborhood turnover were more likely to be obese;
• Women living in areas where it's easy to get from one point to another were less likely to be overweight or obese, but the same was not true for men.

"This research shows there are relationships between neighborhood environment and older adults' weight status, but it doesn't identify the mechanisms or pathways," Grafova said. "Further investigation is important because knowledge of these pathways is the basis for successful interventions and for more successful aging."

To view the article abstract or to obtain the full text, visit: http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/11/2065.

The UMDNJ-School of Public Health (www.sph.umdnj.edu) is the nation's first collaborative school of public health and is sponsored by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in cooperation with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and New Jersey Institute of Technology.