Kate Strully
Associate Professor of Sociology, University at Albany
Background: Residential zoning laws are important policy levers behind key social determinants of health, including affordable housing, racial-ethnic segregation, and concentrated poverty. However, studies of residential zoning policies and population health are very limited. This analysis focuses on density zoning restrictions (DZ), which are a prime example of exclusionary zoning, and recent programs that incentivize or require developers to build affordable housing units in new construction, which are typically referred as inclusionary zoning (IZ) laws.
Aim 1: Draws on data from the 2020 Medicare Disparities Database to conduct an ecological-level analysis of how DZ and IZ policies are associated with health disparities in populations 65+ in the 50 most populous core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) in the U.S., and proposes to test for endogeneity in DZ policies using an instrumental variable strategy.
Aim 2: Uses data on respondents 65+ from the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Study to conduct a multi-level analysis at the individual and CBSA level of how DZ and IZ policies are associated with health outcomes across racial-ethnic and income groups.
Aim 3: Involves a review and preliminary analysis of IZ programs within large CBSAs to identify significant policy changes and comparison locations in order to design a longitudinal study of effects of changes in IZ policies on income and racial-ethnic health disparities for individuals 65+.