Kids in Poor Neighborhoods Fall Behind...(children with their caretakers were foll...),Health

The researchers took into account the impact of moving into and out of areas of disadvantage. About 17 percent of black children not living in disadvantage moved to a disadvantaged neighborhood between 1995 and 2002, while 42 percent of black children in disadvantaged neighborhoods in 1995 moved to a non-disadvantaged neighborhood during those years.

Children who lived in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood halfway through the follow-up period were almost all black, and they fell behind their otherwise identical peers by about four points on an IQ test. This translates into about one year of schooling.

Almost one-third of black children lived at some point in "concentrated disadvantaged" neighborhoods compared to almost no white or Latino children.

The findings tilt the nature-versus-nurture debate toward the latter factor.

"The study has implications for interventions, because they've identified the risk factors, it appears, that contribute to negative outcomes," Gilman said. "We don't have a lot of intervention research. It would seem that if you began to design intervention studies that target these specific risk factors, hopefully, you will begin to see an increase in verbal scores, particularly among African-Americans."

More information

Visit the Nemours Foundation for more on kids' health.

SOURCES: Richard Gilman, Ph.D., coordinator, psychology and special education, division of developmental and behavioral pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Ohio; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences