Danielle Wallace

The Latino Paradox in Neighborhood Context: The Case of Asthma and Other Respiratory Conditions

OBJECTIVES Evidence indicates that foreign-born Latinos have a health advantage compared with US-born persons of the same socioeconomic status. An explanation for this paradox has remained elusive. We examined the extent to which this paradox exists for the prevalence of asthma and other respiratory conditions. We then explored the role of neighborhood social context in understanding any observed advantage. We invoked theories of social organization, collective efficacy, and the urban ethnic enclave. METHODS We combined data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey with 2 other data sources and used hierarchical generalized linear modeling techniques. RESULTS We found a distinctly graded effect for asthma and other breathing problems among foreign-born Latinos, depending on community composition. Foreign-born Latinos embedded in a neighborhood that had a high percentage of foreign-born residents experienced a significantly lower prevalence of asthma and other breathing problems; those in communities that had a low percentage of foreign-born residents had the highest prevalence overall (even when compared with African Americans). CONCLUSIONS Foreign-born Latinos have a respiratory health advantage only in enclave-like settings. Contexts such as these may provide the cohesiveness critical for effective prevention.

Neighborhood Social Processes, Physical Conditions, and Disaster-Related Mortality: The Case of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave

The authors draw on Klinenbergs (2002) ethnography and recent neighborhood theory to explain community-level variation in mortality during the July 1995 Chicago heat wave. They examine the impact of neighborhood structural disadvantage on heat wave mortality and consider three possible intervening mechanisms: social network interaction, collective efficacy, and commercial conditions. Combining Census and mortality data with the 1995 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey and Systematic Social Observation, the authors estimate hierarchical Poisson models of death rates both during the 1995 heat wave and comparable, temporally proximate July weeks (1990-94, 1996). They find that neighborhood affluence was negatively associated with heat wave mortality. Consistent with Klinenbergs ethnographic study of the Chicago heat wave, commercial decline was positively associated with heat wave mortality and explains the affluence effect. Where commercial decline was low, neighborhoods were largely protected from heat-related mortality. Although social network interaction and collective efficacy did not influence heat wave mortality, collective efficacy was negatively associated with mortality during comparable July weeks (when no heat wave occurred). Unequal distribution of community-based resources had important implications for geographic differences in survival rates during the Chicago heat wave, and may be relevant for other disasters.

A Longitudinal Assessment of the Impact of Foreclosure on Neighborhood Crime

Objectives: To examine possible effects of housing foreclosure on neighborhood levels of crime and to assess temporal lags in the impact of foreclosure on neighborhood levels of crime. Methods: Longitudinal data from Glendale, Arizona, a city at the epicenter of the nation’s foreclosure problem. The authors rely on four data sources: (1) foreclosure data, (2) computer-aided dispatch (CAD)/police records management system (RMS) data, (3) U.S. census and census estimate data, and (4) land use data. Results: Foreclosure has a short-term impact, typically no more than 3 months, on total crime, property crime, and violent crime, and no more than 4 months for drug crime. Conclusions: Foreclosures do not have a long-term effect on crime in general, and have different, though modest effects on different types of crime. The relationship between foreclosure and crime is not linear in nature but rather is characterized by a temporal, short-term flux in crime.

Examining the Role of Familial Support During Prison and After Release on Post-Incarceration Mental Health

A significant number of prisoners experience mental health problems, and adequate social support is one way that facilitates better mental health. Yet, by being incarcerated, social support, particularly family support, is likely to be strained or even negative. In this study, we examine whether familial support—either positive or negative—in-prison and after release affects mental health outcomes post-release. Using the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) dataset, we regress post-release mental health on in-prison familial support, post-incarceration familial support, and changes in familial support. We find that while in-prison family support does not affect mental health, post-release familial support does. Also, experiencing an increase in negative familial support is associated with lower post-incarceration mental health. We conclude with a discussion of policies which may facilitate better familial support environments.

Recidivism and the Availability of Health Care Organizations

Incarceration has been identified as a cause of poor health in current and formerly incarcerated individuals. Given the high likelihood of being in poor health when exiting prison, it is plausible that health impacts recidivism. Furthermore, ex-prisoners cluster in disadvantaged neighborhoods that are unlikely to have decent health services. Currently, there is insufficient research to examine this relationship at an ecological level. In this study, we investigate the relationship between the availability of health care organizations (HCOs) and their changes over time with neighborhood level recidivism, and how these relationships may be moderated by neighborhood disadvantage. We determine that the effect of HCOs on recidivism is indeed moderated through disadvantage: as disadvantage increases, the negative effect of losing significant amounts of HCOs on recidivism accelerates. Our results suggest that while increasing HCOs in disadvantaged neighborhoods is important, keeping HCOs in place is equally important for moderating negative neighborhood level outcomes.

A Test of the Routine Activities and Neighborhood Attachment Explanations for Bias in Disorder Perceptions

“Neighborhood disorder” refers to how people perceive neighborhoods as unsafe and disorganized. However, certain disorder cues may indicate disorder to some residents but not to others. There are many explanations for disorder perception bias, though few have been tested. This article uses data on 4,721 residents in 100 neighborhoods in Seattle to assess two explanations for biases: neighborhood attachment and routine activities. Using fixed-effect models, this article shows that neighborhood attachment and routine activities provide additional insight into disorder perceptions. Hanging out with teens and engaging in protective neighborhood activities, like watching neighbors’ property, have a strong positive influence on disorder perceptions. This study concludes by discussing alternative explanations for disorder perception bias and their impact on disorder theory as a whole.

Do you see what I see? Perceptual variation in reporting the presence of disorder cues

A growing body of literature considers the causes of variation in perceptions of disorder; thus far, few explanations are adequate. We ask: when exposed to the same environment, do individuals homogenously report the presence of the same disorder cues? Using a dataset that cluster samples residents within city blocks and hierarchal logistic regression, we assess whether individuals residing within 1-2 blocks of each other report the same disorder cues. We find that (1) there is significant variation in reports, (2) individuals tend to disagree on the presence of disorder, not its absence, and (3) that reporting various disorder cues has significant ties to an individuals characteristics, their routine activities, and how attached they are to their neighborhood. How individuals report and interpret disorder seems to be dependent on the confluence of social, historical, economic, and place-based factors. Our results suggest revisiting the theorization of how individuals report on and interact with disorder.

Desistance and Legitimacy: The Impact of Offender Notification Meetings on Recidivism Among High Risk Offenders

Legitimacy-based approaches to crime prevention assume that individuals will comply with the law when they believe that the law and its agents are legitimate and act in ways that are “fair” and “just.” Currently, legitimacy-based programs are shown to lower aggregate levels of crime; yet, no study has investigated whether such programs influence individual offending. Using quasi-experimental design and survival analyses, this study evaluates the effectiveness of one such program—Chicago’s Project Safe Neighborhoods’ (PSN) Offender Notification Forums—at reducing individual recidivism among a population of returning prisoners. Results suggest that involvement in PSN significantly reduces the risk of subsequent incarceration and is associated with significantly longer intervals that offenders remain on the street and out of prison. As the first study to provide individual-level evidence promoting legitimacy-based interventions on patterns of individual offending, out study suggests these interventions can and do reduce rates of recidivism.

Is Investor Purchasing of Foreclosures Related to Neighborhood Crime? Evidence From a Phoenix Suburb

Little is known about how investors purchasing foreclosures during the recent U.S. housing crisis are affecting neighborhood crime. While they may decrease crime by reducing vacancies or bettering neighborhood conditions, they may increase it by escalating neighborhood turnover. Combining local police department data on calls for service with foreclosure, home sales, and sociodemographic data, this research uses longitudinal modeling to assess the relation between the purchasing of foreclosures by investors and calls for service in neighborhoods in Chandler, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb where investors are renting former foreclosures. Neighborhoods where foreclosures were more often purchased by investors had more calls for service about violent crime the following year.

Mass Reentry, Neighborhood Context and Recidivism: Examining How the Distribution of Parolees Within and Across Neighborhoods Impacts Recidivism

Recent scholarship focuses on the role neighborhood context plays in reoffending. These studies lack an examination of how the size of the parolee population at the neighborhood-level impacts individual recidivism. We examine how the size and clustering of parolee populations within and across neighborhoods impacts individual-level recidivism. Using data from parolees returning to three Ohio cities from 2000 to 2009, we examine how concentrations of parolees in neighborhoods and in the surrounding neighborhoods impact the likelihood of reoffending. We also examine whether parolee clustering conditions the relationship between neighborhood-level characteristics and recidivism. Results show concentrated reentry increases recidivism, while parolees in stable neighborhoods are less likely to recidivate. Also, the positive effect of parolee concentration is tempered when parolees return to stable neighborhoods. These findings suggest that augmenting resources available in neighborhoods saturated by parolees, as well as bolstering residential stability in these same neighborhoods might reduce reoffending.