title: Public Housing Relocations and Partnership Dynamics in Areas With High Prevalences of Sexually Transmitted Infections.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We investigated the implications of one structural intervention--public housing relocations--for partnership dynamics among individuals living areas with high sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevalence. High-prevalence areas fuel STI endemicity and are perpetuated by spatially assortative partnerships.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed 7 waves of data from a cohort of black adults (n = 172) relocating from 7 public housing complexes in Atlanta, Georgia. At each wave, data on whether participants' sexual partners lived in the neighborhood were gathered via survey. Participant addresses were geocoded to census tracts, and measures of tract-level STI prevalence, socioeconomic conditions, and other attributes were created for each wave. "High-prevalence tracts" were tracts in the highest quartile of STI prevalence in Georgia. Descriptive statistics and hierarchical generalized linear models examined trajectories of spatially assortative partnerships and identified predictors of assortativity among participants in high-prevalence tracts.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All 7 tracts containing public housing complexes at baseline were high-prevalence tracts; most participants relocated to high-prevalence tracts. Spatially assortative partnerships had a U-shaped distribution: the mean percent of partners living in participants' neighborhoods at baseline was 54%; this mean declined to 28% at wave 2 and was 45% at wave 7. Participants who experienced greater postrelocation improvements in tract-level socioeconomic conditions had a lower odds of having spatially assortative partnerships (adjusted odds ratio, 1.55; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.06-2.26).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Public housing relocation initiatives may disrupt high-prevalence areas if residents experience significant postrelocation gains in tract-level socioeconomic conditions.
authors.affiliation: From the *Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Atlanta, GA; †Division of General Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA; ‡Institute of Public Health at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA; §ZevRoss Spatial Analysis, Ithaca, New York; ¶Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University School of Public Health, New York, NY; and ∥University of North Carolina Schools of Medicine and Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC.
authors.forename: Hannah L F
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: Loida
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bonney
authors.forename: Ruiyan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Danielle F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Haley
authors.forename: Sabriya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Linton
authors.forename: Josalin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hunter-Jones
authors.forename: Zev
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ross
authors.forename: Gina M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Wingood
authors.forename: Adaora A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Adimora
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rothenberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005845:Georgia / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011638:Public Housing; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012747:Sexual Partners; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D062206:Spatial Analysis