Neighborhood-level deprivation measures in the United States: a scoping review and reference guide for investigators

PURPOSE: The extent to which existing measures cover the spectrum of neighborhood-level social determinants of health (SDOH) has not yet been assessed. This review compared the content of U.S.-based neighborhood-level SDOH measures and summarized the use of these measures in empirical research. METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive search on PubMed and Google Scholar, identifying review articles published from 1990–2023, and complemented this search by manually examining the original articles on measure development. We identified 85 measures and categorized them into two groups (42 with a specific name and 43 with no name) and used a framework including 14 domains of neighborhood-level adversity to classify the content of each measure. FINDINGS: Most measures captured the domains of “income/wealth” (96.5% of the 85 measures included a relevant measurement indicator), “employment” (87.1%), “education” (83.5%), “housing” (64.7%), and “demographic/family structure” (60.0%). The most popular measures were the “Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards Index” (87.4 citations per year), “Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage” (77.6 citations per year), and “Child Opportunity Index 2.0” (53.5 citations per year). CONCLUSIONS: A better understanding of the content coverage and use frequency of U.S.-based neighborhood-level adversity measures will facilitate clinical/health services research to select appropriate measures when assessing the effect of neighborhood-level SDOH on health outcomes.