Poster #178 - Variation in school neighborhood characteristics and their relation to early childhood academic proficiency and obesity

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

Prior studies suggest links between children’s residential neighborhood context and health and achievement in early childhood (Minh et al., 2017). For example, neighborhood socioeconomic conditions have been associated with achievement (Andersen et al., 2014), and safety and healthy food access have been associated with weight status (Gordon-Larsen, 2014; Borrell, Graham, & Joseph, 2016). Less is known about the role of school neighborhood contexts. This study explores variation in school neighborhood characteristics and the ways in which characteristics of the school neighborhood relate to academic proficiency and obesity in early childhood.
The sample includes 81 public schools in New York City. An ecologically valid approach was used to define school neighborhoods by constructing a 1000m network buffer around the school. The neighborhood deprivation index was created from 20 census sociodemographic variables using principal components analysis (Messer et al., 2006). Neighborhood walkability and crime were obtained through the FACETS database (Cantor, Chandras, & Pulgarin, 2017). Neighborhood green space was calculated using the normalized difference vegetation index. Neighborhood-level variables were constructed by proportionally interpolating values based on the census block groups in each school’s defined neighborhood. Figure 1 shows the locations of the 81 schools, with their neighborhood buffers, and level of neighborhood deprivation.
School characteristics including student sociodemographic characteristics and state achievement test proficiency in 3rd grade were obtained from the 2016 School-Level Master File, a dataset compiled from publicly available data by the Research Alliance for NYC Schools (2016) at New York University’ Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. School level data on obesity prevalence (calculated from child BMI) will also be obtained through the Research Alliance for NYC Schools.
Correlational analyses were used to explore relations between school sociodemographic characteristics and neighborhood characteristics (See Table 1). Schools in neighborhoods with higher deprivation had higher percentages of Latino students and lower percentages of Asian and white students. Schools in neighborhoods with higher levels of crime had lower percentages of Asian and white students. Neighborhood walkability and greenspace were largely unrelated to the racial and ethnic characteristics of schools with the exception of greater greenspace approaching a significant relationship with percentage of white students (p = .053). Table 1 also indicates correlational relations between neighborhood characteristics and proficiency on state achievement tests. Greater levels of deprivation and higher levels of crime in the school neighborhood were both associated with lower percentages of students obtaining proficient levels on state tests in English Language Arts and Math. Regression results indicated that when controlling for an indicator of the percentage of students living in poverty in the school, school neighborhood deprivation remained a significant independent predictor of the percentage of students obtaining proficiency in both English Language Arts (B = -.331, p = .003) and Math (B = -.356, p = .003). Additional planned analyses will examine the relation of school sociodemographic characteristics and neighborhood characteristics to obesity.
Results suggest the importance of understanding school neighborhoods as a context of child development and considering this context when developing ways to improve children’s outcomes.

Authors

• Alexandra Ursache, New York University School of Medicine
  Presenting Author

• Rachelle Theise, NYU School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alicia Chung, NYU School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laurie Brotman, NYU School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author