Neighborhood Age Structure and its Implications for Health

Age structure at the neighborhood level is rarely considered in contextual studies of health. However, age structure can play a critical role in shaping community life, the availability of resources, and the opportunities for social engagement—all factors that, research suggests, have direct and indirect effects on health. Age structure can be theorized as a compositional effect and as a contextual effect. In addition, the dynamic nature of age structure and the utility of a life course perspective as applied to neighborhood effects research merits attention. Four Chicago neighborhoods are summarized to illustrate how age structure varies across small space, suggesting that neighborhood age structure should be considered a key structural covariate in contextual research on health. Considering age structure implies incorporating not only meaningful cut points for important age groups (e.g., proportion 65 years and over) but attention to the shape of the distribution as well.