Neighbourhood effects and demographic outcomes

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria was known for endowment with oil, its aquatic splendour and wealth creation. The relative advantage of its cities blurred the inherent multidimensional consequences of oil exploration and exploitation on the physical and social environments. With time however, the cumulative negative effects of environmental degradation on the health, wellbeing and socio-economic lives of inhabitants became quite obvious. The people’s agony was exacerbated by government neglect which accounted for the amplification of frustration and aggression among a large majority of the poor in the area. As a result, different categories of the people became activists who were seemingly committed to protests against environmental degradation through petitions, advocacy and peaceful rallies. Over time, these legitimate means evolved into militancy, proliferation of thugs and assassinations. Consequently, Niger Delta communities became synonymous with insecurity, pseudo-governance and youth restiveness. This paper attempts to examine the trends and dimensions of the unholy dynamics that drive demographic transition in the region by highlighting the connections between the dilemma of a failed state, insecurity and underdevelopment with a view to suggesting possible remedies.

This study examines spatial patterns in infant and under-five mortality rates at the levels of agro-climatic zones and Census-districts in India. We find significant spatial correlation both at the national and local level indicating that both global and local environment influences the mortality rates. We identify Assam-East as a spatial outlier. Besides, there exist several hot- and cold-spots in the country. The study further examines determinants of under-five mortality using spatial regression models. Contrary to the existing evidence, we find neither female labor force participation nor general level of modernization help reducing under-five mortality significantly. However, our findings indicated that reducing poverty, improving provisioning of public health interventions like antenatal care to women and immunization of children, and educating women significantly reduce the mortality rates. Integrating health awareness with health policy might be helpful in improving health outcomes. Using OLS without adjusting for spatial heterogeneity may lead to biased and inefficient parameter estimates.

Despite the global decline in childhood mortality, under-5 mortality remains high in Nigeria. With about 1 in 6 children dying before the age of 5, Nigeria is not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal 4. While many studies on childhood mortality in Nigeria have established individual level factors as important predictors of infant and child mortality, similar studies on the effects of neighborhood contexts have been minimal. Hence, this study examines the effects of neighborhood contexts on under-5 mortality in Nigeria. The study utilized 2003 and 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey data. Cox regression analysis was performed on a nationally representative sample of 6028 (2003) and 28,647 (2008) children, (α=0.05). Results established region of residence, place of residence, ethnic diversity, neighborhood infrastructures, community education and health care contexts as important determinants of infant and child mortality in Nigeria. For instance, findings showed that being born or raised in poor neighborhoods (HR:1.54,P<0.05), rural communities (HR:1.25,p<0.05), North-east (HR:1.56), was associated with elevated hazards of dying before age 5. Policies to achieve under-5 mortality reduction in Nigeria must involve community-level interventions aimed at improving child survival in the deprived neighborhoods.

With the purpose to examine the progress in maternal care with decentralized NRHM program (2005) implemented in rural India. This study from the District Level Household Survey data shows that little use is made of antenatal and delivery-care services in EAG states. After adjusting for individual-level factors, availability of all weather road, information given on ANC significantly increases the likelihood of timely receipt of antenatal care and of at least antenatal care visits, while the availability of a health center within 5 kilometers providing natal care significantly increases the odds of each outcome. The odds of having institutional delivery are significantly reduced by distance from the nearest hospital, and are increased if a health worker is present in the neighborhood; and providing antenatal care; furthermore increases with essential adequate equipment/drugs and doctors availability at Primary health center (PHC). Neighborhood higher education increases the likelihood of delivery care. The findings suggest that improving the use made of maternal healthcare services would require, among other things, improvement of the availability of adequate services especially at PHC and road connectivity, information on service delivery in addition to remuneration beneficiary given to women for institutional births (JSY).

The literature on neighborhood context and health suggests that the life-course processes involved in building trajectories of health are not adequately captured in cross-sectional analysis, which has been the empirical focus of much of the research in this area. In this study we use data from the U.S. Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to examine the impact of longitudinal measures of neighborhood racial composition on child self-rated health between kindergarten and 8th grade. We employ two-level multilevel longitudinal logistic regression models to examine variation in the initial status and trajectories of child self-rated health over time. Since the ECLS-K tracked child mobility over time, we are able to model the impact of changes in neighborhood racial composition. We find that compared to children living in low white neighborhoods, children living in high white neighborhoods had higher odds for initial good health (OR=2.10; p<0.001). Children living in high black, Hispanic, and minority neighborhoods has significantly lower odds of initial good health (OR=0.58; p<0.001, OR=0.31; p<0.001 and OR=0.39; p<0.001, respectively). Hispanic children living in high minority neighborhoods have higher odds of good health status compared to those living in low minority neighborhoods (OR=0.34; p<0.01).

The purpose of this study is to estimate the effect of spatial diffusion on fertility behaviour changes in Belgium during the First Demographic Transition at a fine-scale geographic level. The analyses lie in a new data series from 1886 to 1913 providing yearly fertility indicators at the municipality level. Firstly, this data series will be used in a preliminary analysis of the evolution of fertility behaviour in order to produce a first overview of spatial patterns, diffusion effects and barriers to diffusion. This preliminary analysis is expected to reveal local particularities of fertility changes that are undetectable at higher geographic levels. Secondly, the yearly data series will be used in event-history models in order to estimate neighbourhood effects among municipalities. These models will test whether the presence of contiguous municipalities j that experienced a fertility change at time t−1 has an effect on the probability, for a municipality i, of experiencing the same change at time t. These models will also attempt to estimate the barrier effect of the Belgian linguistic border.

This paper will focus on neighbourhood effects on the health status of adolescents and young adults in a European metropolis: Brussels. Contextual effects on health and health behaviour of young persons received much attention in the US, but few is known about its impact in a European context. Brussels is an interesting test case, as it contains sharp socioeconomic discrepancies despite its social welfare regime that offers a good safety net for the disadvantaged. Data are derived from the Belgian census in 2001. It contains information on self-rated health (SRH) and individual characteristics such as nationality, educational level, activity status and household type. Indicators on neighbourhood level include a.o. unemployment rate, proportion of adults with maximum primary education, proportion of single-parent families, mean comfort level of housing and ethnic diversity. Multilevel logistic regression is used to disentangle the association between our contextual indicators and SRH. The Median Odds Ratio is 1.80 [95% CI 1.73-1.87], implying that the heterogeneity between neighbourhoods affects the individual health status of young persons. Our results suggest that contextual indicators of disadvantage contribute to a worse health status of adolescents and young adults, after controlling for several individual measures.

Demographic phenomena show spatial regularity and specific patterns which need to be studied. Development of GIS and Geodatabase brought maps common, and recent developments of spatial analysis allow going further than mapping to measure spatial structure. Neighborhood and scale are two dimensions of demographic data which can’t be no longer ignored.

This paper proposes an original exploration of spatial dimensions of demographic variables (density, proportion of 65+in the population, proportion growth) through the systematic analysis of French census data at various scales (6 administrative divisions) and times (6 censuses from 1968 to 2007).

Using moran’s I and LISA, we consider the effects of scales and neighborhood on spatial patterns. The results underline the necessity to better take space into account in statistical analysis.

Researchers have recently relied on person based randomized interventions to estimate the effects of a neighborhood on a variety of outcomes. An alternative strategy is to implement an intervention at the neighborhood level such that whole communities rather than individuals are randomized into better conditions. I explore the efficacy of each approach by decomposing the total intervention effect into natural direct and indirect effects. A comparison of these effects may provide insight into the precise mechanisms that person and place based interventions work through to impact individual well being. Delineating when each type of treatment yields larger effects provides policymakers insight into their appropriateness given overarching goals.

The rise in the life expectancy level in India and particularly in the urban areas have raised concerns for caring the aged during the post retirement periods. However, not much has been achieved either in the policy front or in arousing consciousness in the public. Specialists belonging to different disciplinary backgrounds have mostly been raising issues pertaining to the macro implications of aging on the economy, society and demography. The socio-psychological implications of aging on the aged segment of the population and social security available for the aged have rather remained a neglected aspect.


The paper takes into account relationships of age with occupation, income, saving, insurance, crime, social problems, physical health, social support systems, retirement planning, cost of living, asset creation, intra family relations etcetera. The variables presented here are used to develop the social security index for the aged in order to undertake the city specific analysis. The study has also addressed the need for right policy perspectives for the aged by the way of suggesting interventions at different levels of government.