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Abstract
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Health-related problems are strongly associated with
the social characteristics of communities and neighborhoods. We need
to treat community contexts as important units of analysis in their
own right, which in turn calls for new measurement strategies as well
as theoretical frameworks that do not simply treat the neighborhood
as a "trait" of the individual. Recent findings from the Project on
Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods support this thesis. Two
major themes merit special attention: (1) the importance of collective
efficacy for understanding health disparities in the modern city; and
(2) the salience of spatial dynamics that go beyond the confines of
local neighborhoods. Further efforts to explain the causes of variation
in collective processes associated with healthy communities may provide
innovative opportunities for preventive intervention. |