Neighborhoods influence children’s health, so it is important to have measures of children’s neighborhood environments. Using the Child Opportunity Index 2.0, a composite metric of the neighborhood...

Improving neighborhood environments for children through community development and other interventions may help improve children’s health and reduce inequities in health. A first step is to develop a population-level surveillance system of children’s neighborhood environments. This article presents the newly developed Child Opportunity Index for the 100 largest US metropolitan areas. The index examines the extent of racial/ethnic inequity in the distribution of children across levels of neighborhood opportunity. We found that high concentrations of black and Hispanic children in the lowest-opportunity neighborhoods are pervasive across US metropolitan areas. We also found that 40 percent of black and 32 percent of Hispanic children live in very low-opportunity neighborhoods within their metropolitan area, compared to 9 percent of white children. This inequity is greater in some metropolitan areas, especially those with high levels of residential segregation. The Child Opportunity Index provides perspectives on child opportunity at the neighborhood and regional levels and can inform place-based community development interventions and non-place-based interventions that address inequities across a region. The index can also be used to meet new community data reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act.

In the 1930’s, the Home Owner Loan Corporation (HOLC) drafted maps to quantify variation in real estate credit risk across US city neighborhoods. The letter grades and associated risk ratings assigned to neighborhoods discriminated against those with black, lower class, or immigrant residents and benefitted affluent white neighborhoods. An emerging literature has begun linking current individual and community health effects to government redlining, but each study faces the same measurement problem: HOLC graded area boundaries and neighborhood boundaries in present-day health datasets do not match. Previous studies have taken different approaches to classify present day neighborhoods (census tracts) in terms of historical HOLC grades. This study reviews these approaches, examines empirically how different classifications fare in terms of predictive validity, and derives a predictively optimal present-day neighborhood redlining classification for neighborhood and health research.

Lead is well known for its adverse health effects on children, particularly when exposure occurs at earlier ages. The primary source of lead hazards among young children is paint used in buildings built before 1978. Despite being 100% preventable, some children remain exposed and state and local policies often remain reactive. This study presents a methodology for planners and public health practitioners to proactively address lead risks among young children. Using geospatial analyses, this study examines neighborhood level measurement of lead paint hazard in homes and childcare facilities and the concentration of children aged 0–5. Results highlight areas of potential lead paint hazard hotspots within a county in the Midwestern state studied, which coincides with higher concentration of non-white children. This places lead paint hazard in the context of social determinants of health, where existing disparity in distribution of social and economic resources reinforces health inequity. In addition to being proactive, lead poisoning intervention efforts need to be multi-dimensional and coordinated among multiple parties involved. Identifying children in higher lead paint hazard areas, screening and treating them, and repairing their homes and childcare facilities will require close collaboration of healthcare professionals, local housing and planning authorities, and community members.

Having grown up in an age of rapidly developing electronic communication technology, today's students come to higher education with high levels of comfort and familiarity with computer-mediated communication (CMC, hereafter). The students' level of comfort with CMC, coupled with CMC's promises of enabling supplemental class discussion as well as reaching students at a distance, has encouraged more educators to incorporate CMC as part of their instruction. Also, classrooms in US higher education are becoming more diverse with students coming from many different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In this context, this qualitative study describes experiences of international students in a large US Midwestern university as they participate in class discussion through CMC as a part of their course requirements. Seven Korean female students participated in the study, talking about their experiences of communication in cyberspace (CMC) in English through several in-depth interviews per participant. Analyses of interview data reveal the complex processes that they go through as they try to convey their ideas into English in cyberspace across the borders of language and culture. Habiendo crecido durante una era de rápido desarrollo de la tecnología de la comunicación electrónica, los estudiantes de hoy llegan a la universidad con altos niveles de comodidad y familiaridad con la comunicación mediada por computadora (CMC). El nivel de comodidad de los estudiantes con la CMC, combinado con las promesas de la CMC de permitir discusión fuera del salón de clase, así como alcanzar a estudiantes a distancia, ha animado a más educadores a incorporar CMC como parte de la instrucción de sus cursos. Además, las aulas universitarias estadounidenses se hacen cada vez más diversas con estudiantes provenientes de muchos diferentes bagajes culturales y lingüísticos. En tal contexto, este estudio cualitativo describe las experiencias de estudiantes internacionales en una universidad grande del medio-oeste de los Estados Unidos, a partir de su participación en las discusiones de clase, teniendo el CMC como uno de sus requerimientos para el curso. Siete estudiantes femeninas coreanas participaron en el estudio. Cada una de ellas habló de sus experiencias de comunicación en inglés en el ciberespacio (CMC), en varias entrevistas a fondo. Los análisis de datos de dichas entrevistas revelan los complejos procesos por los cuales ellas pasan al intentar comunicar sus ideas en inglés en el ciberespacio, a través de las fronteras del idioma y la cultura.