• Stephanie L Mayne, Angelina Jose, Allison Mo, Lynn Vo, Simona Rachapalli, Hussain Ali, Julia Davis, and Kiarri N Kershaw.
• Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 680 North Lake Shore Drive Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. Stephanie.mayne@northwestern.edu.
• Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Jul 3; 15 (7).

AbstractNeighborhood psychosocial stressors like crime and physical disorder may influence obesity-related outcomes through chronic stress or through adverse effects on health behaviors. Google Street View imagery provides a low-cost, reliable method for auditing neighborhood physical disorder, but few studies have examined associations of Street View-derived physical disorder scores with health outcomes. We used Google Street View to audit measures of physical disorder for residential census blocks from 225 women aged 18⁻44 enrolled from 4 Chicago neighborhoods. Latent neighborhood physical disorder scores were estimated using an item response theory model and aggregated to the block group level. Block-group level physical disorder scores and rates of police-recorded crime and 311 calls for service requests were linked to participants based on home addresses. Associations were estimated for 6 obesity-related outcomes: body mass index, obesity, total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and weekly consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, fast food, and snacks. Hierarchical regression models estimated cross-sectional associations adjusting for individual sociodemographics and neighborhood poverty. Higher neighborhood physical disorder was associated with greater odds of obesity (OR: 1.43, 95% CI: 1.01, 2.02). Living in a neighborhood with a higher crime rate was associated with an increase in weekly snack consumption of 3.06 (95% CI: 1.59, 4.54).

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