Cumulative Neighbourhood Deprivation and Chronic Health Disparities: The Buffering Role of Social Cohesion

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 14. Social Resources and Health

Abstract

This study examines whether neighbourhood social cohesion functions as a form of social resilience that mitigates the adverse health effects of area-level deprivation. Sociological research has long established that neighbourhood contexts shape health outcomes through material, social, and psychosocial pathways. In England, stark health inequalities persist along neighbourhood deprivation gradients, with residents in the most deprived areas experiencing substantially worse physical and mental health. While a growing body of literature links neighbourhood deprivation to poor health and social cohesion to improved wellbeing, relatively few studies explicitly test whether cohesion buffers the health penalties associated with living in deprived areas. Moreover, existing research rarely considers the cumulative nature of neighbourhood disadvantage over time.

Drawing on the Cumulative Disadvantage Framework, this study extends prior work by conceptualising deprivation as a dynamic and accumulated exposure rather than a purely cross-sectional condition. It asks whether neighbourhood cohesion operates as a moderating effect or mediating mechanism in the relationship between both concurrent and cumulative deprivation and multiple dimensions of health. The analysis uses five waves (1, 3, 6, 9, and 12) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study, geographically linked to Lower-layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in England. The sample includes 168,241 person-wave observations from 66,025 adults. Neighbourhood deprivation is measured using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), and social cohesion is assessed through Buckner’s Neighbourhood Cohesion Instrument. Health outcomes include SF-12 physical and mental component scores (PCS & MCS), long-standing illness, and multimorbidity indicators. Multilevel modelling techniques are employed to account for clustering within neighbourhoods, alongside multiple imputation to address missing data. This design enables a comprehensive assessment of neighbourhood cohesion as social resilience resource within a cumulative deprivation framework.

Author

• Qiuyue Lin, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford