Assistant professor and researcher, Dr. Weidi Qin, was initially inspired to investigate the reasons that older Mexican Americans experience higher than average poor health outcomes, including cognitive decline and disability, during a summer immersion program at the University of Michigan in 2023. While there, she had access to the largest dataset focused on older Mexican Americans in the United States. As Dr. Qin said she wanted to learn “what we can do at the community level to help older Mexican Americans to delay the point they experience cognitive declines”. Dr. Qin wanted to add to our understanding of this problem, by helping people to see this as an environmental and systemic, rather than just an individual, issue.
As Dr. Qin described, health problems, such as cognitive decline, and functional difficulties, such as problems with grocery shopping, meal preparation, or using the toilet, that many older adults face will be worse if they live in a neighborhood with high disadvantage. This means a neighborhood with conditions such as high poverty, lack of access to nutritious food, high unemployment, inadequate housing, and high rates of crime.
To address this, Dr. Qin said that we need to address the problem upstream, and that the government needs to spend more on addressing neighborhood disadvantages and providing support to decaying neighborhoods. This would include investment in improving access to resources such as healthcare, social support, and safe space for physical activity in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Dr. Qin gave an example of how to do this by describing an earlier project of hers in which the research team provided matched SNAP dollars to older adults in disadvantaged neighborhoods who purchased food at farmer’s markets. So, if an older adult spent $5 on fruits and vegetables at a farmer’s market, Dr. Qin’s research team would give them $5 back to spend on other food. This was also paired with education about healthy food choices. Dr. Qin reported that most people enjoyed this program and that it seemed to lead to more healthy eating habits. She explained, “if we present healthier options with SNAP customers, combining with nutrition education, they tend to shop for the healthier options.”
Dr. Qin also pointed out that research has found protective factors that are present in disadvantaged neighborhoods. For example, neighborhoods with high Hispanic populations often have a strong sense of community and social cohesion. In these neighborhoods, friends and family members often support each other which can protect against some of the negative health impacts associated with living in a neighborhood with many disadvantages. Communities and policy makers can build upon these strengths, in combination with the results of Dr. Qin’s research, to create harm-reducing interventions and improve neighborhoods.
Dr. Qin says that her next project will be looking at the role that neighborhood disadvantage plays in disability and negative health for older Mexican Americans over time. This will help researchers gain a greater understanding of how these disadvantages impact health, which can help social workers to understand these health outcomes from a person-in-environment perspective and create effective interventions to improve health. As she describes, “we want to pay attention to the environmental factors contributing to the outcomes, versus blaming the individuals.”