Gentrification and childhood obesity: Evidence from New York City public school students in public housing.

Objective: The study objective was to determine the effect of gentrification on the weight outcomes of New York City public school students living in public housing.

Methods: In a prospective cohort of 19,022 New York City public school students in public housing followed during 2009-2017, weight outcomes of students living in public housing buildings in gentrified neighborhoods were compared to those living in consistently low-socioeconomic-status neighborhoods; assignment was quasi-random in each borough.

Results: Among the 42,182 student-year observations, gentrification did not increase weight outcomes significantly, for BMI z scores (0.