Publisher/Institution: University of Michigan

Abstract: Understanding which features of the urban built environment contribute to human health and well-being is a major target for health policy research aimed both at reducing social disparities in health outcomes and at preventing the onset of chronic disease population-wide. At the same time, changes in urban planning policy have been targeted as a possible strategy for environmental, social, fiscal, transportation and other policy improvements as well. In an innovative application of ecological, biomarker, and social survey data for Chicago, this dissertation explores the implications of residential location for individual biological, psychosocial, and social well-being in terms of (1) the accumulation of biological risk factors for disease, (2) cynically hostile personality, and (3) perception of neighborhood social relations. Chapter 2 examines how sorting into residential neighborhoods explains black-white disparities in the accumulation of biological risk factors. The third chapter first examines social disparities in cynical.