Being Part of The World

We examine African American women’s perceptions of the ways their neighborhoods affect health. Drawing upon data from participant observation and focus groups with Detroit residents, we examine physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions encompassed in women’s definitions of health. The complexity of relationships between health and neighborhood emerge as women describe not only the influence of neighborhood conditions on health, but also on social relationships that have been established as protective of health. As women describe the effects of neighborhood conditions, they describe their active efforts and strategies to maintain personal and community health. We discuss implications of these results for understanding multiple, complex associations between social inequalities, neighborhood characteristics, and health. We suggest that the exploratory evidence presented here supports frameworks that posit the role of race-based residential segregation in racial disparities in health through limiting access to social and economic resources that are necessary to sustain health.

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