Neighborhoods...

Physical And Mental Health Boosted By Move To Less Impoverished Neighborhoods

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Mental Health;  Public Health
Article Date: 24 Sep 2012 - 1:00 PDT
Moving from a high-poverty to lower-poverty neighborhood spurs long-term gains in the physical and mental health of low-income adults, as well as a substantial increase in their happiness, despite not improving economic self-sufficiency, according to a new study published in Science by researchers at the University of Chicago and partners at other institutions. 

Although moving into less disadvantaged neighborhoods did not raise incomes for the families that moved, these families experienced important gains in well-being in other ways. Moving from a high-poverty neighborhood to one with a poverty rate 13 percentage points lower increased the happiness of low-income adults by an amount equivalent to the gains caused by a $13,000 rise in family income. /.../