Health & Place 12 (2006) 167–179 Urban asthma and the neighbourhood environment in New York City Jason Corburn a,Ã , Jeffrey Osleeb b,c , Michael Porter b,c a Center for Occupational & Environmental Health, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 425 E. 25th St. rm 724 West, New York, NY 10010, USA b Department of Geography, Hunter College of CUNY, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, NY, USA c Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, NY, USA Accepted 5 November 2004 Abstract Asthma is now the leading cause of emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and missed school days in New York City’s poorest neighbourhoods. While most research focuses on the influence of the indoor environment on asthma, this study examines the neighbourhood effects on childhood asthma, such as housing and ambient environmental hazards. Using Geographic Information Science (GIScience) we identify neighbourhoods with elevated concentrations of childhood asthma hospitalizations between 1997 and 2000 in US census tracts, analyze the sociodemographic, housing characteristics, and air pollution burdens from stationary, land use and mobile sources in these areas. The paper reveals the importance of distinguishing the specific and often different combinations of poor housing conditions, outdoor air pollution and noxious land uses that contribute to the high incidence of asthma in impoverished urban neighbourhoods. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Asthma; Neighbourhood environment; Housing; Land use; Geographic information science Introduction Urban asthma is frequently described as one of America’s fastest growing epidemics. The epidemic is particularly acute among poor, African-American and Latino children living in urban neighbourhoods. While the national prevalence of childhood asthma in 1999 was approximately 7% for all children under 15-years old, African-American children living below the poverty line were 15–20% more likely to have asthma (CDC, 2002). In large urban areas, the prevalence of asthma is even more severe. For instance, in New York City 17% of children have experienced asthma-like symptoms at some point in their lives (New York City Department of Health (NYC DOH), 1999). Children living in poor New York City neighbourhoods bear the heaviest burden of the disease and are three times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma as children who live in wealthy neighbourhoods (NYC DOH, 2003; Claudio et al., 1999). Asthma is the leading cause for emergency room evaluations, pediatric hospitalizations, and school absenteeism in New York City (NYC DOH, 2003). Numerous factors are believed to be behind the distribution of urban asthma. Residential exposures, including environmental tobacco smoke and in-home allergens common in poor quality housing, such as mold ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/healthplace 1353-8292/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2004.11.002 Ã Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 212 481 5262; fax: +1 212 481 8795. E-mail address: jcorburn@hunter.cuny.edu (J. Corburn).