Neighborhood Disadvantage and Adult Depression

Using multilevel data, Ifind that residents of poor, mother-only neighborhoods have higher levels of depression than residents of more advantaged neighborhoods. My data arefrom the 1995 Community, Crime and Health survey, a probability sample of 2,482 adults in Illinois with linked information about the respondents' census tract. Adjustment for individual-level race, ethnicity, sex, age, education, employment, income, household structure, and urban residence indicates that more than half of apparent contextual effect is really compositional, due to the fact that residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to be disadvantaged themselves; however, a significant contextual effect survives. All of the distressing effects offemale headship and poverty in the neighborhood are mediated by perceived neighborhood disorder The daily stress of living in a neighborhood where social order has broken down is associated with depression.