Community Collective Efficacy and Adolescent Health in Los Angeles

Deborah Cohen, RAND
Brian K. Finch, RAND

We consider the effects of collectice efficacy at the neighborhood level on individual-level adolescent health outcomes and behaviors. While the salutary effects of individual-level social support on health and mortality are well-known, most research on collective efficacy focuses on neighborhood conditions such as crime and violence. We hypothesize that collective efficacy (informal social control and social cohesion, e.g.) may have independent effects on adolescent health (unprotected sex, substance use, weapon-carrying, and exercise, e.g.), net of individual-level social support, gender, race/ethnicity, and socio-economic status. We use a unique and representative sample of LA County, the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (LAFANS), that was designed explicitly to test research questions that employ multi-level data structures and utilize hierarchical linear (and non-linear) regression models. We operationalize adolescent health outcomes as the result of both family-level structures and neighborhood-level processes that become more salient as young children approach adulthood.