Finding HOPE: Changes in depressive symptomology following relocation from distressed public housing.

Many public housing residents suffer from poor mental health and depression, which may be a function of both socioeconomic deprivation and residing in disorderly, unstable, and disadvantaged neighborhoods. While not explicitly targeting mental health, the HOPE VI program may improve public housing residents' mental health by relocating them from distressed developments and into less-disadvantaged and disorderly neighborhoods. This paper examines post-relocation depressive symptomology among residents relocated from the Boulevard Homes public housing development in Charlotte, NC.

Effects of an Individual Development Account Program on Retirement Saving: Follow-up Evidence From a Randomized Experiment.

We examine the 10-year follow-up effects on retirement saving of an individual development account (IDA) program using data from a randomized experiment that ran from 1998 to 2003 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The IDA program included financial education, encouragement to save, and matching funds for several qualified uses of the saving, including contributions to retirement accounts. The results indicate that as of 2009, 6 years after the program ended, the IDA program had no impact on the propensity to hold a retirement account, the account balance, or the sufficiency of retirement balances to meet retirement expenses.

Housing and health: time for renewed collaboration.

This article reviews the evidence linking housing affordability, overcrowding, and dilapidation to both physical and mental health. It also presents several ways that public health and city planning professionals can work together to address those housing-related health problems.

Neighborhood characteristics moderate effects of caregiving on glucose functioning.

Objective: Adverse neighborhood environments and caregiving for a relative with dementia are both stressors that have been associated with poor health. The present study examined the extent to which three self-report measures of neighborhood characteristics interact with caregiving status (caregiver versus noncaregiver) to modify an important stress related health outcome: plasma glucose.

Methods: The study sample consisted of 147 community recruited caregivers and 147 participants who did not have caregiving responsibilities.