The associations of objective and perceived neighborhood disadvantage with stress among pregnant black women.
Sarah E Vaughan, Dawn P Misra, Jazib Gohar and 3 others
PMID 36740747WHAT IT FOUND
Pregnant Black women who perceived the most neighborhood disorder were more likely to report high stress.
Objective neighborhood deprivation was not associated. Ask about perceived safety and disorder, not just address-based disadvantage.
Key findings
01After adjusting for maternal age and annual household income, women in the highest perceived neighborhood disorder group had more than twice the odds of being in the highest perceived stress group.
02Perceived crime was associated with higher stress by itself, but not after perceived neighborhood disorder was added to the model.
03Living in the most objectively deprived neighborhoods was not associated with higher perceived stress.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was an observational analysis, so it shows associations, not that neighborhood disorder caused stress. The analysis used questionnaire data collected during pregnancy and did not follow outcomes such as preterm birth. The stress measure asked about the past month and could be affected by recall bias, and the questionnaire reports were self-reported. Most participants had low income, with 61.7% reporting annual household income under $20,000, so results may not apply to less impoverished groups. The study included only two Midwest metropolitan areas, which limits generalizability. The objective neighborhood deprivation index had limited variation in the sample, which may have made it harder to detect an association. Perceived crime was not independently associated with stress once perceived disorder was included, so the two perceived measures overlap in what they capture.
Declared interests
The supplied article text does not report a conflict-of-interest declaration. The publication metadata lists research support from NIH, Extramural.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that objectively disadvantaged neighborhoods do not matter. The study only tested an objective neighborhood index against perceived stress, and the authors note limited variation in objective deprivation, so this null finding does not rule out other neighborhood effects or outcomes such as preterm birth.