NIH-funded Scientists Put Socioeconomic Data on the Map
The Neighborhood Atlas, a new tool to help researchers visualize socioeconomic data at the community level is now available. This online platform allows for easily ranking and mapping neighborhoods according to socioeconomic disadvantage. Seeing a neighborhood's socioeconomic measures, such as income, education, employment and housing quality, may provide clues to the effects of those factors on overall health, and could inform health resources policy and social interventions. The Neighborhood Atlas is housed at the
Where someone lives can determine several health-related factors, such as safety, stress and access to food. A person's neighborhood can influence many conditions, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which are disproportionately more common among racial and ethnic minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged.
"Socioeconomic disadvantage is one of the fundamental factors that result in health disparities; and understanding those factors is what will lead to development of interventions to reduce disparities," said
Developed by
The Neighborhood Atlas is built so that it can be merged with other data sources to foster better understanding of how neighborhood disadvantage impacts health.
Researchers, policy makers and front-line health and social service personnel can use the Neighborhood Atlas to study fundamental social-biological mechanisms of health and disease, develop or study the impact of health policy or better align resources.
"Effectively measuring socioeconomic factors is a key step for conducting rigorous health disparities research related to aging," said
The Neighborhood Atlas is already being used by the
"Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with many health-related factors including limited access to nutritious food, more safety concerns and greater risk of toxic exposures, such as pollution,"
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References
N Engl J Med 2018; 378:2456-2458 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1802313
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