ReviewJournal of epidemiology and community health2001
Multilevel analyses of neighbourhood socioeconomic context and health outcomes: a critical review.
Review in Journal of epidemiology and community health, 2001. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 777 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
777 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 2,203 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are Area-Level Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Dental Caries and Tooth Loss? A Systematic Review.Caries research · 2025Pooled it
- Neighborhood Safety and Hypertension Risk: A Systematic Review.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025Pooled it
- Associations between dimensions of the social environment and cardiometabolic health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2024Pooled it
- Neighborhood infrastructure-related risk factors and non-communicable diseases: a systematic meta-review.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2023Pooled it
- Does crime trigger genetic risk for type 2 diabetes in young adults? A G x E interaction study using national data.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of socioeconomic status on end-of-life costs: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC palliative care · 2020Pooled it
- Gentrification, Neighborhood Change, and Population Health: a Systematic Review.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Relationship between childhood socioeconomic position and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): a systematic review.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2019Pooled it
- Non-Physician Areas in Japan: Typological Classification Based on Regional Demographic Characteristics.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- A cross-sectional and prospective examination of alcohol use and misuse among adult twin and sibling pairs discordant for neighborhood socio-economic disadvantage.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- Cardiovascular health among young adults: Do childhood neighborhoods matter?SSM - population health · 2026Article
- Neighborhood-level socioeconomic position and mortality among children born with critical congenital heart defects.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Disparities in practice: implementation of health promotion policies in 2883 Hungarian schools with a focus on small-sized institutions.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- Individual Socioeconomic Measures and Change in HoNOS Scores among Persons Attending Adult Community Mental Health Services.Community mental health journal · 2026Article
- Neighbourhood Social Vulnerability and Preterm Birth Risk Among Infants With Trisomy 21: A Statewide Analysis.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2026Article
- Walking participation and health-related quality of life: an ecological analysis across 229 districts in Korea.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Article
- Is neighborhood socioeconomic status associated with health behavior in Berlin? Cross-sectional data of the German National Cohort (NAKO).BMC public health · 2026Article
- A pattern-learning algorithm associates copy number variations with brain structure and behavioural variables in an adolescent population cohort.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Diverse Health-related Outcomes among American Indian and Alaska Native Peoples during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
717 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeInterest in the effects of neighbourhood or local area social characteristics on health has increased in recent years, but to date the existing evidence has not been systematically reviewed. Multilevel or contextual analyses of social factors and health represent a possible reconciliation between two divergent epidemiological paradigms-individual risk factor epidemiology and an ecological approach. DATA SOURCES: Keyword searching of Index Medicus (Medline) and additional references from retrieved articles. STUDY SELECTION: All original studies of the effect of local area social characteristics on individual health outcomes, adjusted for individual socioeconomic status, published in English before 1 June 1998 and focused on populations in developed countries. DATA SYNTHESIS: The methodological challenges posed by the design and interpretation of multilevel studies of local area effects are discussed and results summarised with reference to type of health outcome. All but two of the 25 reviewed studies reported a statistically significant association between at least one measure of social environment and a health outcome (contextual effect), after adjusting for individual level socioeconomic status (compositional effect). Contextual effects were generally modest and much smaller than compositional effects.
conclusionsThe evidence for modest neighbourhood effects on health is fairly consistent despite heterogeneity of study designs, substitution of local area measures for neighbourhood measures and probable measurement error. By drawing public health attention to the health risks associated with the social structure and ecology of neighbourhoods, innovative approaches to community level interventions may ensue.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.