Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 2003 Sep;93(9):1576-82.
doi: 10.2105/ajph.93.9.1576.

Moving to opportunity: an experimental study of neighborhood effects on mental health

Tama Leventhal  1 , Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Moving to opportunity: an experimental study of neighborhood effects on mental health

Tama Leventhal et al. Am J Public Health. 2003 Sep.

Abstract

Objectives: The health consequences of neighborhood poverty are a public health problem. Data were obtained to examine links between neighborhood residence and mental health outcomes.

Methods: Moving to Opportunity was a randomized, controlled trial in which families from public housing in high-poverty neighborhoods were moved into private housing in near-poor or nonpoor neighborhoods, with a subset remaining in public housing. At the 3-year follow-up of the New York site, 550 families were reinterviewed.

Results: Parents who moved to low-poverty neighborhoods reported significantly less distress than parents who remained in high-poverty neighborhoods. Boys who moved to less poor neighborhoods reported significantly fewer anxious/depressive and dependency problems than did boys who stayed in public housing.

Conclusions: This study provides experimental evidence of neighborhood income effects on mental health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Massey DS, Denton NA. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press; 1993.
    1. Wilson WJ. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Innercity, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press; 1987.
    1. Leventhal T, Brooks-Gunn J. The neighborhoods they live in: effects of neighborhood residence upon child and adolescent outcomes. Psychol Bull. 2000;126:309–337. - PubMed
    1. Mayer SE, Jencks C. Growing up in poor neighborhoods: how much does it matter? Science. 1989;243:1441–1445. - PubMed
    1. Tienda M. Poor people and poor places: deciphering neighborhood effects on poverty outcomes. In: Huber J, ed. Macro-Micro Linkages in Sociology. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publications; 1991:244–262.

Publication types

MeSH terms