Development and validation of statewide survey-based measures of livability in Connecticut
In this paper, a factor analysis of livability-related survey items in the DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey identifies 3 salient domains: safety, opportunity, and infrastructure. We combined these livability-related survey items into composite measures estimating people’s perceptions of where they live. We found that these measures are robust, with high reliability (e.g., internal consistency), in addition to high convergent validity with other area-level measures (e.g., racial residential segregation, area deprivation).
First author Nishita Dsouza said, “Livability is being increasingly measured as its popularity as a public policy goal rises. This study represents an opportunity to measure livability through combination of place-based survey items, an approach that can be replicated to create high-quality, robust measures to foster cross-sector collaboration.” Within the paper, this emphasized through saying that "[Creating] livability indicators at differing levels of geography is essential to the policy-making process by encouraging decision-makers to adopt a 'health in all policies approach' to examine upstream causes, think critically about systems change... and work across [sectors]."
The Influence of Housing Status and Food Insecurity on a Behavioral HIV/STI Prevention Intervention for Black Women under Community Supervision in New York City: A Moderation Analysis
This paper’s findings indicate that the effect of the E-WORTH intervention, a behavioral HIV/STI prevention program with group sessions, was moderated by housing insecurity. Compared to the control group, the E-WORTH intervention had a larger effect for participants who were housing insecure, with 63% fewer acts of condomless sex among the housing insecure group. While the original hypothesis was that there would be a larger effect among housing secure participants, the research team attributes these counterintuitive findings to tailored elements of the E-WORTH intervention specifically designed to address the needs and challenges associated with housing instability.
“This is yet another call to action to focus and intervene on housing insecurity and other upstream determinants of health,” said Nishita Dsouza, the paper’s first author.
Interior immigration enforcement experiences, perceived discrimination, and mental health of U.S.-citizen adolescents with Mexican immigrant parents
Through an analysis of baseline survey data of U.S. citizen adolescents with a Mexican parent at risk for deportations, researchers including co-author Nishita Dsouza found that children who experienced a parental deportation had higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and that children who experienced discrimination had higher depressive symptoms and internalized stigma.
Dsouza said, "In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, evidence-based, family-friendly policies and interventions that prioritize psychological well-being are necessary to reduce mental health disparities [among Latino adolescents in the US]."