Neighborhood racial composition and trajectories of child self-rated health: An application of longitudinal propensity scores

Children function within multiple socio-environmental contexts including family, school, and neighborhood. The role each of these contexts play in determining well-being is dynamic and changes throughout early-middle childhood. Recent literature on neighborhood context and health suggests that the life-course processes involved in building trajectories of health are not adequately captured in cross-sectional analysis, which has been the empirical focus of much of the research in this area. In this study we use a nationally representative longitudinal sample of approximately 21,400 United States school children derived from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) survey to examine the impact of longitudinal measures of neighborhood racial composition on child self-rated health between kindergarten and 8th grade. We employ two-level multilevel longitudinal logistic regression models with time-varying propensity scores to examine variation in the initial status and trajectories of child self-rated health between kindergarten and 8th grade. Since the ECLS-K tracked child mobility over time, we are able to model the impact of changes in neighborhood racial composition. We find significant differences in initial poor self-rated health by child race, household socioeconomic status and parental marital status but no evidence of a change in trajectory of health over time. Using time-varying propensity scores, we find no effect of neighborhood racial composition on initial health status or health status trajectories.