Understanding persistent and increasing spatial inequalities in health is an important field of academic enquiry for geographers, epidemiologists, public health researchers and others. Delivering robust explanations for the growing spatial divide in health offers potential for improving health outcomes across the social spectrum, but particularly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This paper has three aims. First, it will briefly consider the evidence that poor health is increasingly concentrated in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Studies documenting the increasing spatial divide in individual health outcomes including life expectancy, morbidity, health behaviours and mental health in countries such as the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand will be considered. Second, an ‘environmental justice’ framework will be adopted to examine the international evidence that socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods also experience lower quality physical environments. Discussion will focus on whether the unequal geographical distribution of environmental amenities and disamenities are important in shaping risk and resilience to health events, and if this in turn helps to shape health inequalities. Case studies from recently completed work in the UK and New Zealand will be used. In the final part of the paper, the utility of neighbourhood-level policy interventions to affect the health of local residents will be critically examined. It will be argued that future research should simultaneously consider the ‘triple jeopardy’ of social, health and environmental inequalities.
NeighbourhoodEffects.org is a Centre for Housing Research project hosting a collaborative ESRC Seminar Series run by:
Centre for Housing Research, The Observatory, Buchanan Gardens, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9LZ. Email: mail@neighbourhoodeffects.org
