Barrett A. Lee’s research while affiliated with Pennsylvania State University and other places

Background: Little is known at the national level about child food insecurity (CFI) among homeless and precariously housed US families, given sample and measurement limitations of existing studies. Objective: Drawing on 1990s data, we document the monthly prevalence of CFI for these families, compare it to the prevalence for domiciled families, and examine sources of CFI variation within homeless and precariously housed families suggested by our conceptual model. Methods: The 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) contains a small subset of CFI measures identical to those in the food security module of the 1996 Current Population Survey (CPS), facilitating homeless-domiciled comparisons. We employ multiple logistic regression to evaluate potential correlates of CFI among the NSHAPC families. Results: Monthly prevalence of CFI in the NSHAPC families far exceeds that of their poor but domiciled CPS counterparts. Within the NSHAPC sample, CFI is a partial function of family composition, parental vulnerabilities, food stamp (SNAP) allotment, and access to nutrition-relevant organizations such as schools and health care settings. The NSHAPC data also hint at the uneven distribution of services and programs across communities. Contribution: Our research employs older data to provide a nationally representative picture of the magnitude and correlates of CFI among homeless and precariously housed American families. We offer a conceptual model for understanding how family risk and protective factors, parents' use of external resources, and the local institutional context are associated with CFI. This framework may apply to domiciled households experiencing material hardship as well.

No national studies have assessed adult and child food insecurity (AFI and CFI, respectively) among homeless and precariously-housed families and the concordance between parent and child hunger. It is also unclear how parental capital, vulnerabilities, and instrumental behaviors relate to food insecurity. We developed a parental management model of family AFI and CFI and used the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) to address the following: (1) What is the prevalence of AFI and CFI among homeless and precariously-housed families versus domiciled families from the Current Population Survey (CPS)? (2) How are parental capital, vulnerabilities, and instrumental behaviors related to food insecurity?, And (3) which food sources do these families use most? Results identified food insecurity in 59% of NSHAPC families, including 13% with AFI and CFI. Comparatively, fewer than 10% of low-income CPS families met any such criteria. Multinomial logistic models indicated positive associations between parental mental health challenges and AFI only and AFI with CFI, and parental victimization, while homeless and adverse childhood experiences were positively related to AFI with CFI. Larger monthly food stamp allotments lowered the risk for AFI with CFI, and adequate pediatric health care lowered risks for both AFI only and AFI with CFI. Food pantries and mobile delivery programs were used more among families with food insecurity, while soup kitchens were used more among food secure families. The food security of homeless and precariously-housed families could be improved through wider access to health care and food assistance.

Neighborhood effects research continues to advance sociological understanding of inequality. Here, we consider a complementary but lower profile body of work. Since 2000, scholars have shown increasing interest in neighborhood reputations, socially constructed place identities that reflect the relative position of neighborhoods in the urban status hierarchy. These reputations, which emerge from multiple sources, are correlated most consistently with an area's racial and socioeconomic composition. Evidence suggests that stigmatized neighborhoods and their inhabitants experience a range of negative consequences. Prestigious neighborhood reputations may be aspirational, guiding households' preferences and influencing the residential selection process in a manner that reinforces existing disparities. Although reputations can change, they appear to do so incrementally because of their cumulative nature. A key challenge for future research is to demonstrate that neighborhood reputations are “real” rather than epiphenomenal, having significance beyond the objective characteristics of the places they represent. Resolving this issue will require finer alignment between reputation measurement and conceptualization, and more analysis of the extent of agreement needed among people's neighborhood perceptions for a reputation to exist. Longitudinal data on many neighborhoods, coupled with historical case studies, could illuminate the dynamics of reputations and help us better evaluate their presumed causes and effects.

Have the magnitude and correlates of residential displacement changed during the early twenty-first century in response to the foreclosure and eviction crises and escalating natural hazard disasters? We consider this possibility against the backdrop of past research on other causes of displacement. Our components approach to the concept encourages definitions of varied emphasis and scope. These definitions are operationalized with reason-for-move data from seven waves of the American Housing Survey conducted between 2001 and 2013. We document fluctuations in the relatively small share of mobile households who move involuntarily but detect no clear upward trend over time. Analysis of householder characteristics associated with displacement indicates that many longstanding disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged statuses persist, although they tend to be modest in size. Paradoxically, such patterns may contribute to a perception of displacement as random or unpredictable, further heightening public concern about the issue.

Our study investigates the diversification and fragmentation theses, fueled by claims that greater diversity is reshaping the social fabric of American life and that the United States is an increasingly fragmented nation. We take a multidimensional view of heterogeneity that considers whether growing ethnoracial diversity within U.S. communities (i.e., incorporated and unincorporated places) has resulted in the consolidation or differentiation of demographic, sociocultural, and economic distinctions between 1980 and 2010. As communities have become more ethnoracially diverse, they have become more heterogeneous in language and nativity—two characteristics tied closely to Latino and Asian population growth. However, ethnoracial diversity within communities is only weakly associated with household, age, educational, occupational, or income heterogeneity despite large racial/ethnic differences in these characteristics nationally. This trend does not apply to all forms of ethnoracial diversity equally: Hispanic and especially Asian population growth is more likely to generate community sociodemographic and economic heterogeneity than is black population growth. Consistent with the fragmentation hypothesis, we also find that broader geographic context matters, with more ethnoracially diverse metropolitan and micropolitan areas experiencing reduced social and economic heterogeneity inside their constituent places. We conclude by discussing the social implications of these patterns for intergroup relations, spatial exclusion, and ethnoracial inequality.

Most quantitative studies of neighborhood racial change rely on census tracts as the unit of analysis. However, tracts are insensitive to variation in the geographic scale of the phenomenon under investigation and to proximity among a focal tract’s residents and those in nearby territory. Tracts may also align poorly with residents’ perceptions of their own neighborhood and with the spatial reach of their daily activities. To address these limitations, we propose that changes in racial structure (i.e., in overall diversity and group-specific proportions) be examined within multiple egocentric neighborhoods, a series of nested local environments surrounding each individual that approximate meaningful domains of experience. Our egocentric approach applies GIS procedures to census block data, using race-specific population densities to redistribute block counts of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians across 50-meter by 50-meter cells. For each cell, we then compute the proximity-adjusted racial composition of four different-sized local environments based on the weighted average racial group counts in adjacent cells. The value of this approach is illustrated with 1990–2000 data from a previous study of 40 large metropolitan areas. We document exposure to increasing neighborhood racial diversity during the decade, although the magnitude of this increase in diversity—and of shifts in the particular races to which one is exposed—differs by local environment size and racial group membership. Changes in diversity exposure at the neighborhood level also depend on how diverse the metro area as a whole has become.

Our research advances what is known about the urban portion of the Latino diaspora, focusing on the extent to which Hispanic country-of-origin groups have spread throughout metropolitan America. Analyzing 1990–2010 census data for the 7 largest origin groups, we find that all 7 have become more evenly dispersed across metro areas, with group shares declining in primary gateways and increasing in other types of destinations. At the same time, Dominicans and Cubans remain highly concentrated in New York and Miami, respectively, and certain pairs of groups (e.g., Mexicans and Dominicans) continue to inhabit different metropolises despite a modest trend toward convergent settlement among most pairs. All groups have experienced some growth in exposure to ethnoracial diversity, particularly in primary gateway settings. However, Mexicans are less exposed than any other origin group to African Americans. The variation in our results by group attests to the delicate balance between the forces driving spatial concentration and dispersion. We conclude that multiple diasporas are underway rather than a single, uniform one. This pattern has relevance both for diversity within local Hispanic communities and for relations between Hispanics and other panethnic populations, most notably Whites and Blacks.

The United States is experiencing a profound increase in racial and ethnic diversity, although its communities are experiencing the trend differently depending on their size and location. Using census data from 1980 to 2010, we focus on a subset of highly diverse local jurisdictions in which no ethnoracial group makes up more than half of the population. We track the prevalence, emergence, and characteristics of these no-majority places, finding that they are rapidly increasing in number and are home to substantial and growing shares of the Black, Latino, and Asian populations. Transitions in no-majority places varied considerably over time. Older cohorts of places that became no-majority decades ago moved toward Latino or Black majorities, whereas those in recent cohorts tended to persist as no-majority places. Most of these communities continued to diversify in the decades after first becoming no-majority and remain quite diverse today. However, the shift toward no-majority status was often accompanied by large White population declines.

BACKGROUND Few studies have examined long-term changes in ethnoracial diversity for US states despite the potential social, economic, and political ramifications of such changes at the state level. OBJECTIVE We describe shifts in diversity magnitude and structure from 1980 through 2015 to determine if states are following a universal upward path. METHODS Decennial census data for 1980‒2010 and American Community Survey data for 2015 are used to compute entropy index (E) and Simpson index (S) measures of diversity magnitude based on five panethnic populations. A typology characterizes the racial/ethnic structure of states. RESULTS While initial diversity level and subsequent pace of change vary widely, every state has increased in diversity magnitude since 1980. A dramatic decline in the number of predominantly white states has been accompanied by the rise of states with multigroup structures that include Hispanics. These diverse states are concentrated along the coasts and across the southern tier of the country. Differences in panethnic population growth (especially rapid Hispanic and Asian growth coupled with white stability) drive the diversification trend. CONCLUSIONS The diversity hierarchy among states has remained relatively stable over the past 35 years in the face of universal gains in diversity magnitude and the increasing heterogeneity of racial/ethnic structures. CONTRIBUTION We document ethnoracial diversity patterns at an understudied geographic scale, the state level, where diversity may have important consequences across a range of institutional domains.

Although increasing racial and ethnic diversity is a demographic trend with society-wide implications, it has advanced farther in some parts of the United States than others. Our research seeks to understand this unevenness at the local level. Drawing on 1980–2010 census data, we use an innovative spatial analytic approach to examine the spread or diffusion of diversity across counties in the 48 contiguous states. Three perspectives—locational persistence, spatial assimilation, and institutional hub—offer different expectations about the nature of the diffusion process. The perspectives are evaluated by mapping changes in the magnitude and structure of diversity and by tracing county transitions between types of diversity clusters. We document considerable stability in diversity patterns over a 30-year period, consistent with the logic of locational persistence. But support is also found for the spatial assimilation and institutional hub models in the form of cluster-type transitions that reflect contagious diffusion and hierarchical diffusion, respectively.