Connecting the social and built environment to health and health inequalities

History

Since its inception in the early 1960s, the Social Environment and Health Program (SEH) has been a leader in the development of theory and research on the major role of psychosocial factors in the etiology and course of both mental and physical health and illness. Founded as a cross-disciplinary program, SEH was first led by psychologists John R. P. French, Jr., Robert Kahn, and Floyd Mann in the 1960s and 1970s, and joined by physician epidemiologist Sidney Cobb and several junior colleagues (especially Stanislav Kasl and Robert Caplan). One member of this founding group, Robert Kahn, remains an active and valued member of SEH, working on problems of productive activities and successful aging (Rowe and Kahn, 1998), as he continues to age successfully beyond his 90th birthday in 2008. We continue to expand this area of research, focusing on the importance of social context for health and well-being across the life course. Our work examines social disparities in health, including the role of racism, toxic and built environments, and the molecular pathways linking neighborhoods to health inequalities.

Racial inequalities in kidney and end stage renal diseases (ESRD) have been well-documented and are independent of lower socioeconomic status (e.g., income, education), lower access to care, or other conventional risk factors. Research has identified numerous genetic risk factors of renal disease, particularly the APOL1 variants occurring in persons of African descent. However, these genetic factors primarily increase susceptibility, requiring other factors for the development of disease. A growing body of research indicates the importance of neighborhoods for health and health inequalities. Unequal neighborhood contexts may be an important and largely unexplored determinant of the increased kidney disease risk experienced by Blacks compared to Whites. In fact, neighborhood context may interact with genetic susceptibility to result in kidney disease inequalities. Clarifying the role of neighborhood is important as neighborhoods are neither random nor naturally-occurring. They develop and change through policies and are thus amenable to intervention. Despite the evidence indicating the importance of neighborhoods for the major risk factors and determinants of kidney disease, there is a dearth of empirical research on the role of neighborhoods in relation to kidney disease itself, particularly at pre-ESRD stages. Through my research project, I will use three cohorts (Health and Retirement Study, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and Nephrotic Syndrome Study Network) to examine the interactive associations between multiple measures of four neighborhood domains (racial residential segregation, social environment, built environment, and health care resources) and genetic risk (APOL1 and β-globin HBB genotypes, adjusting for genetic ancestry), as follows: Aim 1: Link state-of-the-art measures of four domains of neighborhood context to population-representative, epidemiological, and clinical cohort datasets containing markers of kidney disease. Aim 2: Examine longitudinal associations between neighborhood context and renal health, with adjustment for genetic ancestry and APOL1 genotype. Aim 3: Examine the modifying role of neighborhood context on longitudinal associations between APOL1 high-risk genotype status and renal health. With this training and dataset creation, I will then clarify the neighborhood characteristics that are most tightly linked to renal outcomes both directly and through their interactions with genetic risk loci. This research will set a solid foundation for research on neighborhood characteristics and inequalities in kidney disease. Not only will this research clarify the interdependent roles of neighborhood and genetic risk on these inequalities, but it will identify key neighborhood characteristics, which are amenable to change, related to kidney disease within and between racial groups.