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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Boston, Massachusetts » Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center On Aging » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #219320
Title: Defining and measuring the concept of 'community stress' for nutrition and physical activity interventions

Author
item HYATT, RAYMOND - TUFTS UNIVERSITY
item GRIFFITH, JOHN - TUFTS-NEMC
item Tucker, Katherine
item FALCON, LUIS - NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSTIY

Submitted to: Annual Scientific Meeting NAASO, The Obesity Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/24/2007
Publication Date: 10/20/2007
Citation: Hyatt, R., Griffith, J., Tucker, K., Falcon, L. 2007. Defining and measuring the concept of 'community stress' for nutrition and physical activity interventions. Annual Scientific Meeting NAASO, The Obesity Society. 15(9 Suppl):A1-234.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Community-based research suggests that our physical and social environment makes a difference in our health status and that a key mechanism that relates one's context to their individual health status is stress. A better understanding of this relationship is important to healthcare providers, researchers, and policy-makers who seek to understand the etiology of individual stress and its affect on individual health. Three community-level stress instruments are reviewed including the City Stress Inventory, the Index of Chronic Community Stress, and the Tucson Neighborhood Stress Index. A census-based stress index is estimated for a sample of Boston neighborhoods and compared to direct observations made by Tufts University graduate students and digital photographs of the corresponding neighborhoods. The index is validated using crime statistics for Boston neighborhoods at the Census block group level of aggregation. In this study, we present the results of a pilot project to examine the efficacy of defining and measuring the concept of neighborhood stress in Boston neighborhoods that are involved with the Boston Puerto Rican Center on Population Health and Health Disparities (BPRC) study at Tufts University. The stress index is used to examine allostatic load (biologic markers of stress) and to a measure of self-reported stress among BPRC participants. The neighborhood stress index is further used to identify risk for comorbidities such as disability among elderly Puerto Ricans with diabetes in the Boston area.