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About the talk:
A large literature has documented residential neighborhood conditions as a major driver of health disparities across the life course. We consider the fact that individuals routinely travel outside of their residential neighborhoods for things like work, shopping, and social activities, thereby introducing heterogeneity in contextual exposures. An important implication is that those residential neighborhood effects on health may be aggravated or mitigated by exposures to extra-residential neighborhood conditions. Yet, researchers have had few opportunities to examine the full range of individuals’ extra-residential exposures. For this study, we draw on three waves of data from the Chicago Health and Activity Space in Real-Time (CHART) study, which collected survey and smartphone-based location data from a population-based sample of 455 older adults in ten Chicago neighborhoods. We describe variation in extra-residential exposures to poverty and affluence, and then we examine how these patterns of exposure are associated with changes in health. Preliminary findings reveal that extra-residential exposures are socially and spatially structured. Importantly, we find the highest levels of variation in everyday exposures to poverty among individuals living in the poorest residential neighborhoods, and these extra-residential exposures seem to be consequential for health. We discuss the implications of these findings for a new demography of mobility and neighborhood effects on health.

About the speaker:
Erin York Cornwell is an associate professor of sociology at Cornell University. Her research is driven by concerns about how social status and social contexts shape social action, social networks, and individual outcomes. She has expertise in designing, fielding, and analyzing social surveys, including smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments that allow the examination of social life in real-time.