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Published on: February 22, 2018
Urban neighborhood context and change in depressive symptoms in late life
Richard G Wight1, Janet R Cummings, Arun S Karlamangla
1Department of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Box 951772, 650 Young Drive South, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, USA. rwight@ucla.edu
Objectives:
This study examines associations between urban neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics and change over time in late-life depressive symptoms.
Methods:
Survey data are from three waves (1993, 1995, and 1998) of the Study of Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old, a U.S. national probability sample of noninstitutionalized persons aged 70 years or older in 1993. Neighborhoods are 1990 U.S. Census tracts. Hierarchical linear regression is used to estimate multilevel models.
Results:
The average change over time in depressive symptoms varies significantly across urban neighborhoods. Change in depressive symptoms is significantly associated with neighborhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage and ethnic composition in unadjusted models but not in models that control for individual-level characteristics.
Conclusions:
Findings indicate that apparent neighborhood-level effects on change in depressive symptoms over time among urban-dwelling older adults reflect, for the most part, differences in characteristics of the neighborhood residents.
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