Associations between a Novel Measure of Census Tract-Level Credit Insecurity and Frequent Mental Distress in US Urban Areas, 2020.

Access to and utilization of consumer credit remains an understudied social determinant of health. We examined associations between a novel, small-area, multidimensional credit insecurity index (CII), and the prevalence of self-reported frequent mental distress across US cities in 2020. The census tract-level CII was developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York using Census population information and a nationally representative sample of anonymized Equifax credit report data. The CII was calculated for tracts in 766 cities displayed on the City Health Dashboard at the time of analysis, predominantly representing cities with over 50,000 residents. The CII combined data on tract-level participation in the formal credit economy with information on the percent of individuals without revolving credit, percent with high credit utilization, and percent with deep subprime credit scores. Tracts were classified as credit-assured, credit-likely, mid-tier, at-risk, or credit-insecure. We used linear regression to examine associations between the CII and a modeled tract-level measure of frequent mental distress, obtained from the CDC PLACES project. Regression models were adjusted for neighborhood economic and demographic characteristics. We examined effect modification by US region by including two-way interaction terms in regression models. In adjusted models, credit-insecure tracts had a modestly higher prevalence of frequent mental distress (prevalence difference = 0.38 percentage points; 95% CI = 0.32, 0.44), compared to credit-assured tracts. Associations were most pronounced in the Midwest. Local factors impacting credit access and utilization are often modifiable. The CII, a novel indicator of community financial well-being, may be an independent predictor of neighborhood health in US cities and could illuminate policy targets to improve access to desirable credit products and downstream health outcomes.

Building Public Health Surveillance 3.0: Emerging Timely Measures of Physical, Economic, and Social Environmental Conditions Affecting Health.

In response to rapidly changing societal conditions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, we summarize data sources with potential to produce timely and spatially granular measures of physical, economic, and social conditions relevant to public health surveillance, and we briefly describe emerging analytic methods to improve small-area estimation. To inform this article, we reviewed published systematic review articles set in the United States from 2015 to 2020 and conducted unstructured interviews with senior content experts in public heath practice, academia, and industry. We identified a modest number of data sources with high potential for generating timely and spatially granular measures of physical, economic, and social determinants of health. We also summarized modeling and machine-learning techniques useful to support development of time-sensitive surveillance measures that may be critical for responding to future major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(10):1436-1445. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306917).

Social and Economic Differences in Neighborhood Walkability Across 500 U.S. Cities.

INTRODUCTION: Neighborhood walkability has been established as a potentially important determinant of various health outcomes that are distributed inequitably by race/ethnicity and sociodemographic status. The objective of this study is to assess the differences in walkability across major urban centers in the U.S. METHODS: City- and census tract-level differences in walkability were assessed in 2020 using the 2019 Walk Score across 500 large cities in the U.S. RESULTS: At both geographic levels, high-income and majority White geographic units had the lowest walkability overall. Walkability was lower with increasing tertile of median income among majority White, Latinx, and Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander neighborhoods. However, this association was reversed within majority Black neighborhoods, where tracts in lower-income tertiles had the lowest walkability. Associations varied substantially by region, with the strongest differences observed for cities located in the South. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in neighborhood walkability across 500 U.S. cities provide evidence that both geographic unit and region meaningfully influence associations between sociodemographic factors and walkability. Structural interventions to the built environment may improve equity in urban environments, particularly in lower-income majority Black neighborhoods.