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Although nonexperimental studies find robust neighborhood effects on adults, such findings have been challenged by results from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) residential mobility experiment. Usin...

Survey nonresponse and attrition undermine the validity of many and possibly most econometric estimates. We propose that survey administrators and evaluators proactively create an instrument for ob...

Although non-experimental studies find robust neighborhood effects on adults, such findings have been challenged by results from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) residential mobility experiment. Using a within-study comparison design, this paper compares experimental and non-experimental estimates from MTO and a parallel analysis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Striking similarities were found between non-experimental estimates based on MTO and PSID. No clear evidence was found that different estimates are related to duration of adult exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods, non-linear effects of neighborhood conditions, magnitude of the change in neighborhood context, frequency of moves, treatment effect heterogeneity, or measurement, although uncertainty bands around our estimates were sometimes large. One other possibility is that MTO-induced moves might have been unusually disruptive, but results are inconsistent for that hypothesis. Taken together, the findings suggest that selection bias might account for evidence of neighborhood effects on adult economic outcomes in non-experimental studies.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is systematic, rooted in history, and important as an identity marker and expressive resource for its speakers. In these respects, it resembles other vernacular or nonstandard varieties, like Cockney or Appalachian English. But like them, AAVE can trigger discrimination in the workplace, housing market, and schools. Understanding what shapes the relative use of AAVE vs. Standard American English (SAE) is important for policy and scientific reasons. This work presents, to our knowledge, the first experimental estimates of the effects of moving into lower-poverty neighborhoods on AAVE use. We use data on non-Hispanic African-American youth (n = 629) from a large-scale, randomized residential mobility experiment called Moving to Opportunity (MTO), which enrolled a sample of mostly minority families originally living in distressed public housing. Audio recordings of the youth were transcribed and coded for the use of five grammatical and five phonological AAVE features to construct a measure of the proportion of possible instances, or tokens, in which speakers use AAVE rather than SAE speech features. Random assignment to receive a housing voucher to move into a lower-poverty area (the intention-to-treat effect) led youth to live in neighborhoods (census tracts) with an 11 percentage point lower poverty rate on average over the next 10-15 y and reduced the share of AAVE tokens by ∼3 percentage points compared with the MTO control group youth. The MTO effect on AAVE use equals approximately half of the difference in AAVE frequency observed between youth whose parents have a high school diploma and those whose parents do not.

Location, Location, Location It seems obvious that a person's residential neighborhood will influence their sense of well-being, but it has been difficult to nail down cause and effect. Ludwig et al. (p. 1505 ; see the Perspective by Sampson ) describe the analysis, 10 to 15 years onward, of a large-scale social experiment carried out in five U.S. cities in the mid 1990s. Several thousand residents of poor neighborhoods were given housing vouchers that could only be used if they moved into much less poor neighborhoods. In comparison to a similar group of individuals who did not move, those who did experienced substantial improvement in their subjective well-being.

Growing concerns about low awareness and take-up rates for government support programs like college financial aid have spurred calls to simplify the application process and enhance visibility. We present results from a randomized field experiment in which low-income individuals receiving tax preparation help were also offered immediate assistance and a streamlined process to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for themselves or their children. Treated participants were also provided with aid estimates that were compared against tuition cost amounts for nearby colleges. The combined assistance and information treatment substantially increased FAFSA submissions and ultimately the likelihood of college attendance, persistence, and aid receipt. In particular, high school seniors whose parents received the treatment were 8 percentage points more likely to have completed two years of college, going from 28% to 36%, during the first three years following the experiment. Families who received aid information but no assistance with the FAFSA did not experience improved outcomes. The findings suggest many other opportunities for using personal assistance to increase participation in programs that require filling out forms to become eligible.

The question of whether neighborhood environment contributes directly to the development of obesity and diabetes remains unresolved. The study reported on here uses data from a social experiment to assess the association of randomly assigned variation in neighborhood conditions with obesity and diabetes.From 1994 through 1998, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) randomly assigned 4498 women with children living in public housing in high-poverty urban census tracts (in which ≥40% of residents had incomes below the federal poverty threshold) to one of three groups: 1788 were assigned to receive housing vouchers, which were redeemable only if they moved to a low-poverty census tract (where10% of residents were poor), and counseling on moving; 1312 were assigned to receive unrestricted, traditional vouchers, with no special counseling on moving; and 1398 were assigned to a control group that was offered neither of these opportunities. From 2008 through 2010, as part of a long-term follow-up survey, we measured data indicating health outcomes, including height, weight, and level of glycated hemoglobin (HbA(1c)).As part of our long-term survey, we obtained data on body-mass index (BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) for 84.2% of participants and data on glycated hemoglobin level for 71.3% of participants. Response rates were similar across randomized groups. The prevalences of a BMI of 35 or more, a BMI of 40 or more, and a glycated hemoglobin level of 6.5% or more were lower in the group receiving the low-poverty vouchers than in the control group, with an absolute difference of 4.61 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI], -8.54 to -0.69), 3.38 percentage points (95% CI, -6.39 to -0.36), and 4.31 percentage points (95% CI, -7.82 to -0.80), respectively. The differences between the group receiving traditional vouchers and the control group were not significant.The opportunity to move from a neighborhood with a high level of poverty to one with a lower level of poverty was associated with modest but potentially important reductions in the prevalence of extreme obesity and diabetes. The mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear but warrant further investigation, given their potential to guide the design of community-level interventions intended to improve health. (Funded by HUD and others.).

Using data from the Moving to Opportunity randomized housing voucher experiment, we estimate the direct effects of housing and neighborhood quality on child health. We show that, five years after random assignment, housing mobility has little impact on overall health status, asthma, injuries, and body mass index. The few effects that we observe imply that being offered a voucher through the program might worsen some aspects of child health, despite significant improvements in housing quality, nutrition and exercise, and neighborhood safety. Our results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that neighborhood conditions explain much of the widely-cited income gradient in child health.

Experimental estimates from Moving to Opportunity (MTO) show no significant impacts of moves to lower†poverty neighborhoods on adult economic self†sufficiency four to seven years after random assignment. The authors disagree with Clampet†Lundquist and Massey's claim that MTO was a weak intervention and therefore uninformative about neighborhood effects. MTO produced large changes in neighborhood environments that improved adult mental health and many outcomes for young females. Clampet†Lundquist and Massey's claim that MTO experimental estimates are plagued by selection bias is erroneous. Their new nonexperimental estimates are uninformative because they add back the selection problems that MTO's experimental design was intended to overcome.

Importance Youth in high-poverty neighborhoods have high rates of emotional problems. Understanding neighborhood influences on mental health is crucial for designing neighborhood-level interventions. Objective To perform an exploratory analysis of associations between housing mobility interventions for children in high-poverty neighborhoods and subsequent mental disorders during adolescence. Design, Setting, and Participants The Moving to Opportunity Demonstration from 1994 to 1998 randomized 4604 volunteer public housing families with 3689 children in high-poverty neighborhoods into 1 of 2 housing mobility intervention groups (a low-poverty voucher group vs a traditional voucher group) or a control group. The low-poverty voucher group (n=1430) received vouchers to move to low-poverty neighborhoods with enhanced mobility counseling. The traditional voucher group (n=1081) received geographically unrestricted vouchers. Controls (n=1178) received no intervention. Follow-up evaluation was performed 10 to 15 years later (June 2008-April 2010) with participants aged 13 to 19 years (0-8 years at randomization). Response rates were 86.9% to 92.9%. Main Outcomes and Measures Presence of mental disorders from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) within the past 12 months, including major depressive disorder, panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), oppositional-defiant disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, and conduct disorder, as assessed post hoc with a validated diagnostic interview. Results Of the 3689 adolescents randomized, 2872 were interviewed (1407 boys and 1465 girls). Compared with the control group, boys in the low-poverty voucher group had significantly increased rates of major depression (7.1% vs 3.5%; odds ratio (OR), 2.2 [95% CI, 1.2-3.9]), PTSD (6.2% vs 1.9%; OR, 3.4 [95% CI, 1.6-7.4]), and conduct disorder (6.4% vs 2.1%; OR, 3.1 [95% CI, 1.7-5.8]). Boys in the traditional voucher group had increased rates of PTSD compared with the control group (4.9% vs 1.9%, OR, 2.7 [95% CI, 1.2-5.8]). However, compared with the control group, girls in the traditional voucher group had a decreased rate of conduct disorder (0.3% vs 2.9%; OR, 0.1 [95% CI, 0.0-0.4]). Conclusions and Relevance Interventions to encourage moving out of high-poverty neighborhoods were associated with increased rates of depression, PTSD, and conduct disorder among boys and a reduced rate of conduct disorder among girls. Better understanding of interactions among individual, family, and neighborhood risk factors is needed to guide future public housing policy changes.

Objectives: Using data from a randomized experiment, to examine whether moving youth out of areas of concentrated poverty, where a disproportionate amount of crime occurs, prevents involvement in crime. Methods: We draw on new administrative data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment. MTO families were randomized into an experimental group offered a housing voucher that could only be used to move to a low-poverty neighborhood, a Section 8 housing group offered a standard housing voucher, and a control group. This paper focuses on MTO youth ages 15-25 in 2001 (n = 4,643) and analyzes intention to treat effects on neighborhood characteristics and criminal behavior (number of violent- and property-crime arrests) through 10 years after randomization. Results: We find the offer of a housing voucher generates large improvements in neighborhood conditions that attenuate over time and initially generates substantial reductions in violent-crime arrests and sizable increases in property-crime arrests for experimental group males. The crime effects attenuate over time along with differences in neighborhood conditions. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that criminal behavior is more strongly related to current neighborhood conditions (situational neighborhood effects) than to past neighborhood conditions (developmental neighborhood effects). The MTO design makes it difficult to determine which specific neighborhood characteristics are most important for criminal behavior. Our administrative data analyses could be affected by differences across areas in the likelihood that a crime results in an arrest. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

We examine long-term neighborhood effects on low-income families using data from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized housing-mobility experiment. This experiment offered to some public-housing families but not to others the chance to move to less-disadvantaged neighborhoods. We show that ten to 15 years after baseline, MTO: (i) improves adult physical and mental health; (ii) has no detectable effect on economic outcomes or youth schooling or physical health; and (iii) has mixed results by gender on other youth outcomes, with girls doing better on some measures and boys doing worse. Despite the somewhat mixed pattern of impacts on traditional behavioral outcomes, MTO moves substantially improve adult subjective well-being.

Letters COMMENT & RESPONSE Notice of Retraction and Replacement: Kessler RC, et al. Associations of Housing Mobility Interventions for Children in High-Poverty Neighborhoods With Subsequent Mental Disorders During Adolescence. JAMA. 2014;311(9):937-947. To the Editor In the Original Investigation entitled “Associa- tions of Housing Mobility Interventions for Children in High- Poverty Neighborhoods With Subsequent Mental Disorders During Adolescence” published in the March 5, 2014, issue of JAMA, 1 we inadvertently reported incorrect confidence inter- vals and a P value in 2 tables. This study explored the associa- tions between 2 types of vouchers given to volunteer public housing families to encourage them to move out of high- poverty neighborhoods (when children were age 0-8 years) and no intervention and subsequent mental disorders in 2872 ado- lescents (at age 13-19 years). The errors were due to failure to update results from an earlier set of models. These errors were discovered in the course of rechecking the code in conjunction with a secondary analy- sis. We have corrected these errors and confirmed that there are no other errors after reviewing our original analysis and findings. The corrections for these errors have changed 1 of the major findings of the study: the previously reported statisti- cally significant reduction in major depressive disorder in girls was not statistically significant. Thus, we have requested that the original article be retracted and replaced. In Table 4, incorrect 95% CIs were reported for major de- pressive disorder for each of the groups; the absolute risks (ARs) and absolute risk reductions (ARRs) have not changed. For the AR in the low-poverty voucher group (n = 1424), the correct data are AR 6.8%, 95% CI 4.9%-8.7% (not 6.8%, 95% CI −12.0% to 25.6%); and the correct data for the ARR are 0.3%, 95% CI −1.8% to 2.3% (not 0.3%, 95% CI, −27.0% to 27.6%). For the AR in the traditional voucher group (n = 1074), the correct data are AR 6.1%, 95% CI 4.5% to 7.7% (not 6.1%, 95% CI −20.1% to 32.4%) and for the ARR, the correct data are 1.0%, 95% CI −1.0% to 3.0% (not 1.0%, 95% CI −30.7% to 32.7%). For the AR in the control group (n = 1173), the correct data are AR 7.1%, 95% CI 5.8% to 8.4% (not 7.1%, 95% CI −21.8% to 35.9%). An incor- rect CI was also reported in Table 5 for the AR of conduct dis- order among girls in the traditional voucher group (n = 533). The correct data are AR 0.3%, 95% CI −0.1% to 0.7% (not 0.3%, 95% CI 0.0% to 0.7%). An incorrect P value was also reported in Table 5 for the effect of the traditional voucher interven- tion on major depressive disorder among girls. The correct P value is .06 (not .04). None of the other findings in Tables 4 or 5 were affected by the errors. The corrections for these errors indicate that the previ- ously reported statistically significant reduction in major de- pressive disorder in girls was not statistically significant, and this result has been removed from the conclusion of the ar- ticle. The article now concludes: “Interventions to encourage moving out of high-poverty neighborhoods were associated with increased rates of depression, PTSD, and conduct disor- der among boys and a reduced rate of conduct disorder among girls. Better understanding of interactions among individual, family, and neighborhood risk factors is needed to guide fu- ture public housing policy changes.” We regret these errors as well as the confusion caused to JAMA, readers, and potentially to public housing policy plan- ners. The abstract, text, and Tables 4 and 5 of the original ar- ticle have been corrected and replaced online. 1 An additional online supplement has been added that includes a version of the original article with the errors highlighted and a version of the replacement article with the corrections highlighted. Ronald C. Kessler, PhD Greg J. Duncan, PhD Lisa A. Gennetian, PhD Lawrence F. Katz, PhD Jeffrey R. Kling, PhD Nancy A. Sampson, BA Lisa Sanbonmatsu, PhD Alan M. Zaslavsky, PhD Jens Ludwig, PhD Author Affiliations: Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (Kessler, Sampson, Zaslavsky); School of Education, University of California-Irvine (Duncan); National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Gennetian, Katz, Kling, Sanbonmatsu, Ludwig); Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Katz); Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC (Kling); Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (Ludwig). Corresponding Author: Ronald C. Kessler, PhD, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, 180 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115 (kessler @hcp.med.harvard.edu). Published Online: June 17, 2016. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.6187 Conflict of Interest Disclosures: All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Dr Kessler reported that he has been a consultant for AstraZeneca, Analysis Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cerner-Galt Associates, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, HealthCore, Health Dialog, Hoffman-LaRoche, Integrated Benefits Institute, J & J Wellness & Prevention, John Snow, Kaiser Permanente, Lake Nona Institute, Matria, Mensante, Merck, Ortho-McNeil Janssen Scientific Affairs, Pfizer, Primary Care Network, Research Triangle Institute, sanofi-aventis, Shire US, SRA International, Takeda Global Research & Development, Transcept Pharmaceuticals, and Wyeth-Ayerst; has served on advisory boards for Appliance Computing II, Eli Lilly, Mindsite, Ortho-McNeil Janssen Scientific Affairs, Johnson & Johnson, Plus One Health Management, and Wyeth-Ayerst; has had research support for his epidemiological studies from Analysis Group Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly & Company, EPI-Q, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals, Ortho-McNeil Janssen Scientific Affairs, Pfizer, sanofi-aventis, Shire US, and Walgreens; and owns 25% share in DataStat. Dr Gennetian reported that he has served on advisory boards for Family Self Sufficiency TWG, Administration for Children and Families, and National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago. Dr Katz reported that he has served on advisory boards for Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation and the Russell Sage Foundation. Dr Ludwig reported that he serves on advisory jama.com (Reprinted) JAMA July 12, 2016 Volume 316, Number 2 Copyright 2016 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: http://jamanetwork.com/ by a University of California - Irvine User on 12/30/2016

We motivate future neighborhood research through a simple model that considers youth educational outcomes as a function of neighborhood context, neighborhood exposure, individual vulnerability to neighborhood effects, and non-neighborhood educational inputs -- with a focus on effect heterogeneity. Research using this approach would require three steps. First, researchers would need to shift focus away from broad theories of neighborhood effects and examine the specific mechanisms through which the characteristics of a neighborhood might affect an individual. Second, neighborhood research would need new and far more nuanced data. Third, more research designs would be needed that can unpack the causal effects, if any, of specific neighborhood characteristics as they operate through well-specified mechanisms.

We motivate future neighborhood research through a simple model that considers youth educational outcomes as a function of neighborhood context, neighborhood exposure, individual vulnerability to neighborhood effects, and non-neighborhood educational inputs -- with a focus on effect heterogeneity. Research using this approach would require three steps. First, researchers would need to shift focus away from broad theories of neighborhood effects and examine the specific mechanisms through which the characteristics of a neighborhood might affect an individual. Second, neighborhood research would need new and far more nuanced data. Third, more research designs would be needed that can unpack the causal effects, if any, of specific neighborhood characteristics as they operate through well-specified mechanisms.

Growing concerns about low awareness and take-up rates for government support programs like financial aid for college have recently spurred calls to simplify the application process and enhance visibility. However, little research has been done to determine whether such reforms would truly improve college access and in what form “simplification” should take. This project examines the effects of two experimental treatments designed to test of the importance of simplifying the process of receiving financial aid and providing clear information about personal aid eligibility using a random assignment research design. H&R Block tax professionals helped low- to moderate-income families complete the FAFSA, the federal application for financial aid. Families were then immediately given an estimate of their eligibility for government aid as well as information about local postsecondary options. A second randomly-chosen group of individuals received only personalized aid eligibility information, which was calculated based on data from the tax form, but they did not receive help completing the FAFSA. Comparing the outcomes of participants in the treatment groups to a control group using multiple sources of administrative data, the analysis suggests that individuals who received assistance with the FAFSA and information about aid were substantially more likely to submit the aid application. High school seniors among this group were also much more likely to enroll in college and receive need-based financial aid the following fall. The program also increased college enrollment for independent adults with no prior college experience, and it increased aid receipt among independent adults who had previously attended college. These results suggest that simplifying the process and providing direct help with the application along with better information could be effective ways to improve college access. However, only providing aid eligibility information without also giving assistance with the form had no significant effect on FAFSA submission rates or college outcomes.

Growing concerns about low awareness and take-up rates for government support programs like college financial aid have spurred calls to simplify the application process and enhance visibility. This project examines the effects of two experimental treatments designed to test of the importance of simplification and information using a random assignment research design. H&R Block tax professionals helped low- to moderate-income families complete the FAFSA, the federal application for financial aid. Families were then given an estimate of their eligibility for government aid as well as information about local postsecondary options. A second randomly-chosen group of individuals received only personalized aid eligibility information but did not receive help completing the FAFSA. Comparing the outcomes of participants in the treatment groups to a control group using multiple sources of administrative data, the analysis suggests that individuals who received assistance with the FAFSA and information about aid were substantially more likely to submit the aid application, enroll in college the following fall, and receive more financial aid. These results suggest that simplification and providing information could be effective ways to improve college access. However, only providing aid eligibility information without also giving assistance with the form had no significant effect on FAFSA submission rates.

Families originally living in public housing were assigned housing vouchers by lottery, encouraging moves to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates. Although we had hypothesized that reading and math test scores would be higher among children in families offered vouchers (with larger effects among younger children), the results show no significant effects on test scores for any age group among over 5000 children ages 6 to 20 in 2002 who were assessed four to seven years after randomization. Program impacts on school environments were considerably smaller than impacts on neighborhoods, suggesting that achievement-related benefits from improved neighborhood environments are alone small.

We study adult economic and health outcomes in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) demonstration, a randomized housing mobility experiment in which families living in high-poverty U.S. public housing projects in five cities were given vouchers to help them move to private housing units in lower-poverty neighborhoods. An experimental group was offered vouchers valid only in a low-poverty neighborhood; a Section 8 group was offered traditional housing vouchers without geographic restriction; a control group was not offered vouchers. Our sample consists largely of black and Hispanic female household heads with children. Five years after random assignment, the families offered housing vouchers through MTO lived in safer neighborhoods that had significantly lower poverty rates than those of the control group not offered vouchers. We find no significant overall effects on adult employment, earnings, or public assistance receipt - though our sample sizes are not sufficiently large to rule out moderate effects in either direction. In contrast, we do find significant mental health benefits of the MTO intervention for the experimental group. We also demonstrate a more general pattern for the mental health results using both voucher groups of systematically larger effect sizes for groups experiencing larger changes in neighborhood poverty rates. In our analysis of physical health outcomes, we find a significant reduction in obesity for the experimental group, but no significant effects on four other aspects of physical health (general health, asthma, physical limitations, and hypertension) or on our summary measure of physical health.

Using data from two population-based case-control studies, we investigated whether maternal residential proximity to hazardous waste sites increased the risk for neural tube defects, conotruncal heart defects, and oral cleft defects in California. We obtained a residential history by interview for mothers of 507 neural tube defect cases (82.7% of eligible) and their 517 controls (84.6%); and 201 heart cases (84.4%), 439 cleft cases (82.2%), and their 455 controls (72.1%). We identified the locations of 764 inactive hazardous waste sites and systematically collected information on site-related contamination for the subset of 105 National Priority List sites. After controlling for several potential confounders, we found little or no increased risk for maternal residence in a census tract containing a site [odds ratio (OR) = 0.9, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.7-1.3 for neural tube defects; OR = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.8-2.1 for heart cases; OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 0.8-1.8 for clefts], but elevated risks for neural tube defects (OR = 2.1, 95% CI = 0.6-7.6) and heart defects (OR = 4.2, 95% CI = 0.7-26.5) for maternal residence within 1/4 mile of a National Priority List site. Furthermore, we observed elevated ORs (> or = 2.0) for neural tube defects and heart defects in association with maternal residence within 1 mile of National Priority List sites containing selected chemical contaminants. Among controls, only 0.6% and 4.4% lived within 1/4 mile and 1 mile of a National Priority List site, respectively, resulting in imprecision in risk estimation.