Inequality in health related to race/ethnicity, income and education continues to characterize the US population. Little is known about the way these factors interact to affect health outcomes or the role played by the physical environment and other contextual factors, which are also likely to covary with race/ethnicity. This study focuses on how numerous community characteristics interact with race/ethnicity and other key socioeconomic factors to affect physical activity, inactivity, and overweight status in American youths as they make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. We intend explore this premise using data from the 3 waves (1995, 1996, 2001-2) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health We will link relevant contextual data with respondents' residential location in wave lI, when many will have moved to new contexts (e.g., college, employment, military service). We will develop measures of access to recreation facilities (e.g., private and public facilities, parks, recreation centers, green spaces, and shopping centers), transportation options (sidewalks, bike paths, public transportation, road network, and transportation density), proximity of road safety hazards and air pollution (correlated and other), and community safety. We will link price data (cigarettes, food, cost of living) for all periods. We develop and estimate models that relate contextual variables as well as race/ethnicity to activity, inactivity and to the likelihood of overweight in young adults. We argue that one must first consider career and residential choice decisions in order to examine how context affects physical activity, and to understand the uneven distribution of access to a wide range of environmental resources. Overweight status and physical activity preferences may affect these decisions. Therefore, our models must account for the endogeneity of career and residential choice, since failure to do so could bias our estimates of the effects of context on activity and overweight. We will also consider issues related to sample selectivity, within race heterogeneity and acculturation.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD041375-03
Application #
6897261
Study Section
Social Sciences, Nursing, Epidemiology and Methods 4 (SNEM)
Program Officer
Spittel, Michael
Project Start
2003-07-15
Project End
2007-06-30
Budget Start
2005-07-01
Budget End
2006-06-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$260,961
Indirect Cost
Name
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Department
Nutrition
Type
Schools of Public Health
DUNS #
608195277
City
Chapel Hill
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27599
Morales, Leonardo Fabio; Gordon-Larsen, Penny; Guilkey, David (2016) Obesity and health-related decisions: An empirical model of the determinants of weight status across the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Econ Hum Biol 23:46-62
Boone-Heinonen, Janne; Gordon-Larsen, Penny (2012) Obesogenic environments in youth: concepts and methods from a longitudinal national sample. Am J Prev Med 42:e37-46
Boone-Heinonen, Janne; Gordon-Larsen, Penny (2011) Life stage and sex specificity in relationships between the built and socioeconomic environments and physical activity. J Epidemiol Community Health 65:847-52
Richardson, Andrea S; Boone-Heinonen, Janne; Popkin, Barry M et al. (2011) Neighborhood fast food restaurants and fast food consumption: a national study. BMC Public Health 11:543
Gordon-Larsen, Penny; Guilkey, David K; Popkin, Barry M (2011) An economic analysis of community-level fast food prices and individual-level fast food intake: a longitudinal study. Health Place 17:1235-41
Boone-Heinonen, Janne; Gordon-Larsen, Penny; Guilkey, David K et al. (2011) Environment and Physical Activity Dynamics: The Role of Residential Self-selection. Psychol Sport Exerc 12:54-60
Boone-Heinonen, Janne; Casanova, Kathleen; Richardson, Andrea S et al. (2010) Where can they play? Outdoor spaces and physical activity among adolescents in U.S. urbanized areas. Prev Med 51:295-8
Boone-Heinonen, Janne; Popkin, Barry M; Song, Yan et al. (2010) What neighborhood area captures built environment features related to adolescent physical activity? Health Place 16:1280-6
Scharoun-Lee, M; Kaufman, J S; Popkin, B M et al. (2009) Obesity, race/ethnicity and life course socioeconomic status across the transition from adolescence to adulthood. J Epidemiol Community Health 63:133-9
Robinson, Whitney R; Gordon-Larsen, Penny; Kaufman, Jay S et al. (2009) The female-male disparity in obesity prevalence among black American young adults: contributions of sociodemographic characteristics of the childhood family. Am J Clin Nutr 89:1204-12

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