Health Inequalities and Neighbourhood Effects in Urban Spaces

Abstract

    This article introduces studies in health geography and social epidemiology about the geographical variations in health observed at the neighbourhood scales and the accumulation of neighbourhood effects research, particularly related to deprivation amplification in Japan. It is considered that, in Japanese society as in Western societies, neighbourhood effects, which occur through the geographical concentration of socioeconomic disadvantage, may work as a spatial-social process that contributes to the shaping of social inequalities in health. However, it is necessary to question what kinds of and how neighbourhood effects, have contributed to emerged social inequalities in health in the context of Japanese urban spaces. It is also crucial to deepen understanding of the mechanisms and historical processes by which they are established through selective migration and environmental changes for effectively tackling the urban problems of health inequalities. The main challenges are (1) to advance systematic analysis of the socioeconomic disparities or determinants of neighbourhood environments, which contribute to a large extent to social inequalities in health, and (2) to consider a temporal and spatial perspective of health inequalities due to neighbourhood effects within cities, with a view to the history of environmental change and residential mobility.