Neighborhood disadvantage may pose an environmental risk to brain development in children University of Southern California | May 6, 2021
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The research appears this week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
These findings highlight the importance of neighborhood environments for child and adolescent brain development, the researchers said, and suggest that policies, programs and investments that help improve local neighborhood conditions and empower communities could support children’s neurodevelopment and long-term health.
“This is the first large, national study of neurodevelopment to determine that the role of neighborhood disadvantage is similar across all regions of the country, and we found that what mattered most were the local differences in neighborhood disadvantage within each city, rather than how cities differ from each other overall,” said lead author Daniel Hackman, assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of S
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A new USC study suggests that certain neighborhoods - particularly those characterized by poverty and unemployment - may pose an environmental risk to the developing brains of children, impacting neurocognitive performance and even brain size.
The research was published May 3 in the journal
These findings highlight the importance of neighborhood environments for child and adolescent brain development, the researchers said, and suggest that policies, programs and investments that help improve local neighborhood conditions and empower communities could support children s neurodevelopment and long-term health. This is the first large, national study of neurodevelopment to determine that the role of neighborhood disadvantage is similar across all regions of the country, and we found that what mattered most were the local differences in neighborhood disadvantage within each city, rather than how cities differ from each other overall, said lead author Daniel Hackman, assist
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Neighborhoods kids grow up in can affect their brain development
Growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood is related to children’s brain structure and neurocognitive performance, according to a study published May 3, 2021 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. It is associated with the brain’s cortical structure and volume as well as how children pay attention, their executive function, reading, flexible thinking, and other tasks that support learning.
These differences could potentially contribute to other inequities during adolescence as well as later in life for these children, though there is no evidence that such neighborhood-related differences are fixed or immutable. Children’s brains exhibit plasticity, meaning that they can change and grow in response to learning and experience. The study’s findings shine a spotlight on the larger population trend and do not serve as a predictor of any individual child’s outcome.