Neighborhood features may be protective or harmful for health of persons once in old age. Given the rapidly aging population, and the potential economic and social benefits of having older persons age in place, understanding the effects of neighborhoods on the health of the elderly is important for the formulation of public policy. In this paper, we provide an overview of what is known about neighborhoods and health in late life and discuss the potential and challenges of using national survey data to study this topic. We begin with a theoretical model of how neighborhoods affect health throughout the.
