By Vincent Lim
Mexican-American neighborhoods often are characterized as areas with high poverty rates, poor access to health care, and low educational and socioeconomic attainment, but they also seem to offer protective health benefits for the older adults who live there, according to a new USC study.
Published in the Journal of Aging and Health, the study suggests that older Mexican Americans who live in ethnically dense Mexican-American neighborhoods have a lower risk for increased frailty than those who live in more ethnically heterogeneous neighborhoods.
“Many times we assume that low-income neighborhoods are bereft [of basic needs],” said lead author Maria Aranda, associate professor at the USC School of Social Work and the USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging. “This study points to the idea that—at least in areas with a high percentage of Mexicans and Mexican Americans—there are factors that are protective.”
Previous studies also have found that older Mexican Americans living in communities with high Mexican-American density had better self-rated health, higher cognitive functioning and lower mortality rates.