Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that elderly adults who live below the poverty line and perceive their neighborhoods to be dangerous are more likely to have a mobility disability. These findings appear in an online publication of the journal BMC Public Health on May 28, 2009.
The team of researchers studied 1,884 people aged 65 and older, measuring both the individuals’
“Our results suggest that dangerous neighborhoods get from the mind into the body and engender mobility disability through psychosocial or psychological processes,” said Cheryl Clark, MD, ScD, of the Department of Medicine at BWH.
The researchers suggest that lower income elderly who live in unsafe neighborhoods may have fewer resources to cope with neighborhood stresses. Moreover, neighborhoods with high crime rates or a reputation for being dangerous may have more difficulty attracting businesses that provide material resources and services. In addition, the correlation between perceived danger and actual danger also suggests that elders may have been reacting to actual crime events in their neighborhoods.
“Our findings underscore the importance of neighborhood safety to healthy aging. Specifically intervening to improve perceptions of neighborhood safety at retirement age may be an important step to reduce the risk of mobility disability among elders,” concluded Clark.
About Brigham and Women's Hospital:
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 777-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. In July of 2008, the hospital opened the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 860 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $416 M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit http://www.brighamandwomens.org.
