Mediating pathways between neighborhood disadvantage and cardiovascular risk: quasi-experimental evidence from a Danish refugee dispersal policy

• Kim, Min Hee ^[4] ; Frøslev, Trine ^[5] ; White, Justin S ^[1] ; Glymour, M Maria ^[1] ; Ilango, Sindana D ^[2] ; Sørensen, Henrik T ^[5] ; Pedersen, Lars ^[5] ; Hamad, Rita ^[3]
  1. [1] Boston University

     Boston University

     City of Boston, Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] University of Washington

     University of Washington

     Estados Unidos

     
  3. [3] Harvard University

     Harvard University

     City of Cambridge, Estados Unidos

     
  4. [4] Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California San Francisco , San Francisco, CA ,
  5. [5] Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital , Aarhus ,

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• Localización: American journal of epidemiology, ISSN-e 1476-6256, ISSN 0002-9262, Vol. 194, Nº. 3, 2025, págs. 635-644
• Idioma: inglés
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  • Abstract Research has documented that neighborhood disadvantage is associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk, but it is unclear which mechanistic pathways mediate this association across the life course. Leveraging a natural experiment in which refugees to Denmark were quasi-randomly assigned to neighborhoods across the country during 1986-1998, and using 30 years of follow-up data from population and health registers, we assessed whether and how individual-level poverty, unstable employment, and poor mental health mediate the relation between neighborhood disadvantage and the risk of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and type 2 diabetes among Danish refugees (n = 40 811). Linear probability models using the discrete time-survival framework showed that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with increased risk of hypertension (0.05 percentage points [pp] per year [95% CI, −0.00 to 0.10]); hyperlipidemia (0.03 pp per year [95% CI, −0.01 to 0.07]), and diabetes (0.01 pp per year [95% CI, −0.02 to 0.03]). The Baron-Kenny product-of-coefficients method for counterfactual mediation analysis indicated that cumulative income mediated 6%-28% of the disadvantage effect on these outcomes. We find limited evidence of mediation by unstable employment and poor mental health. This study informs our theoretical understanding of the pathways linking neighborhood disadvantage with cardiovascular disease risk and identifies income security as a promising point of intervention to be studied in future research.