Uncorrected Proof Jundishapur J Health Sci. In Press(In Press):e122503. Published online 2022 April 19. doi: 10.5812/jjhs-122503. Letter Does Neighborhood Deprivation Cause Obesity? Ameneh Marzban 1, * , Mostafa Madareszadeh 1 and Payam Emami 2 1 Department of Health in Disasters and Emergencies, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Department of Emergency Medical Sciences, School of Paramedical Sciences, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran * Corresponding author: Department of Health in Disasters and Emergencies, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Email: amenemarzban@yahoo.com Received 2022 January 18; Revised 2022 February 28; Accepted 2022 March 07. Keywords: BMI, Neighborhood Deprivation, Obesity, Physical Activity, Weight Gain Dear Editor, Neighborhood characteristics can affect people’s activ- ity. For example, some neighborhood characteristics may cause people to spend more time at home and not perform outdoor activities. Therefore, this may lead to obesity by re- ducing physical activity and increasing sedentary life and food intake. Research shows that neighborhood charac- teristics are at least as important as individual characteris- tics in determining the likelihood of obesity. When the de- sign of a neighborhood hinders physical activity, it causes obesity. In other words, environment structure influences behavior and health outcomes (1). Local parks and walk- able neighborhoods are often considered elements of the urban environment that augment physical activity and di- minish the risk of obesity. In the study by Stark et al. in New York, extending park space effectively reduced BMI, and neighborhoods with multiple clean parks could affect body mass index (BMI) (2). Therefore, neighborhood deprivation can be consid- ered a deterrent. Pearson et al. found in a study that higher neighborhood deprivation and lower access to green space were associated with a significant rise in the likelihood of overweight or obesity. Increased access to green space is accompanied by more walking, while the lack of access to green space may decrease the level of walking. Moreover, in this study, neighborhood deprivation was coupled with reduced walking (3). In France, a study found that living in a lower socioeconomic status (SES) was correlated with higher BMI and waist circumference. Conversely, people living in areas with high SES are more satisfied with the safety, public transportation, and access to sports facilities in their community, resulting in a lower risk of obesity. However, physical space alone is not enough, and the im- pact of environmental factors at the community level, es- pecially the perception of the environment, is more impor- tant in obesity than the physical environment. A national study on women and children in the United States found that obesity was more prevalent among those who consid- ered their neighborhood insecure (4). In other words, people’s perceptions of social dysfunc- tion and the collective efficacy in the neighborhood may affect the amount of time spent outside the home. Social disturbance is a measure of neighborhood safety that ex- plains threats to neighborhood conditions and abnormal behaviors, such as drug trafficking, criminal offense, and inebriation in public. These activities in a neighborhood may cause people to restrict outdoor activities, and they have to stay in their homes. Therefore, daily energy con- sumption will decline (5). The social conditions in which people live have a profound effect on their health. Fac- tors such as poverty, poor nutrition, poor housing, un- employment, insecure income, low education, social dis- crimination, and living in deprived environments are the main determinants of health and health inequality. Medi- cal care can indeed prolong the life or cure a severe illness, while what is essential for population health is the socioe- conomic conditions that make people sick or in need of medical care (6). Collective efficacy is a scale for people to understand connection and closeness with their neighbors (social con- tinuity and confidence) and the neighbors’ capacity to participate in activities to benefit the neighborhood to achieve common goals (informal social control). Conse- quently, low levels of perceived collective efficacy, such as the lack of safety in the neighborhood, may cause people to stay at home. If the neighborhoods are not safe or peo- ple do not have a connection with their neighbors, this can lead to increased psychological stress. For some people, if stress is persistent, it may result in functional disturbance through anxiety or depression. These feelings can exacer- Copyright © 2022, Jundishapur Journal of Health Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.