title: "Weathering" HOPE VI: the importance of evaluating the population health impact of public housing demolition and displacement.
abstract: HOPE VI has funded the demolition of public housing developments across the United States and created in their place mixed-income communities that are often inaccessible to the majority of former tenants. This recent uprooting of low-income, urban, and predominantly African American communities raises concern about the health impacts of the HOPE VI program for a population that already shoulders an enormous burden of excess morbidity and mortality. In this paper, we rely on existing literature about HOPE VI relocation to evaluate the program from the perspective of weathering-a biosocial process hypothesized by Geronimus to underlie early health deterioration and excess mortality observed among African Americans. Relying on the weathering framework, we consider the effects of HOPE VI relocation on the material context of urban poverty, autonomous institutions that are health protective, and on the broader discourse surrounding urban poverty. We conclude that relocated HOPE VI residents have experienced few improvements to the living conditions and economic realities that are likely sources of stress and illness among this population. Additionally, we find that relocated residents must contend with these material realities, without the health-protective, community-based social resources that they often rely on in public housing. Finally, we conclude that by disregarding the significance of health-protective autonomous institutions and by obscuring the structural context that gave rise to racially segregated public housing projects, the discourse surrounding HOPE VI is likely to reinforce health-demoting stereotypes of low-income urban African American communities. Given the potential for urban and housing policies to negatively affect the health of an already vulnerable population, we argue that a health-equity perspective is a critical component of future policy conversations.
authors: University of Michigan Population Studies Center, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. danyak@umich.edu
authors: Danya E
authors: DE
authors: Keene
authors: Arline T
authors: AT
authors: Geronimus
references: Med Care Res Rev. 2001 Jun;58(2):234-48
references: 11398647
references: Soc Sci Med. 1999 Dec;49(12):1623-36
references: 10574234
references: Am J Public Health. 2002 Aug;92(8):1312-8
references: 12144990
references: MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2005 Oct 7;54(39):981-5
references: 16208309
references: J Urban Health. 2011 Feb;88(1):41-53
references: 21279452
references: Demography. 2001 May;38(2):227-51
references: 11392910
references: Am J Public Health. 2006 May;96(5):826-33
references: 16380565
references: Ann Epidemiol. 2008 Jan;18(1):43-7
references: 17890103
references: J Urban Health. 2001 Mar;78(1):72-80
references: 11368205
references: Am J Public Health. 2000 Jun;90(6):867-72
references: 10846503
references: Am J Public Health. 2006 Dec;96(12):2145-53
references: 17077398
references: Soc Sci Med. 1996 Feb;42(4):589-97
references: 8643983
references: Am J Public Health. 1999 Jun;89(6):840-4
references: 10358672
references: Health Place. 2010 Nov;16(6):1216-23
references: 20800532
references: Ethn Dis. 1992 Summer;2(3):207-21
references: 1467758
references: J Health Soc Behav. 2011 Sep;52(3):314-32
references: 21896685
references: J Urban Health. 2010 Sep;87(5):827-38
references: 20585883
references: Ann Epidemiol. 1993 Mar;3(2):130-6
references: 8269064
references: Hum Organ. 2010 Sep 1;69(3):275-284
references: 21037928
references: J Am Med Womens Assoc (1972). 2001 Fall;56(4):133-6, 149-50
references: 11759779
references: Environ Res. 1988 Oct;47(1):1-33
references: 3168963