HEALTH TIPS: Good neighbors, good kids
Health Tip – Audio Version - Good neighbors, good kids
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Healthy People in Healthy Communities (HealthyPeople.gov)
It seems it does take a village to raise a child. A study finds close-knit neighborhoods – ones that have good neighbor relations – raise kids who tend to delay starting sex.
Researcher Christopher Browning of Ohio State University bases that on survey data on neighborhoods in Chicago. His study in the American Sociological Review was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Browning says teens who had less parental supervision – maybe, for instance, the parents worked – had the most benefit from being in a neighborhood where people watched out for each other.
And what’s that like?
“Say you intervene in a fight between kids. Other neighbors will recognize that that’s a beneficial thing for the community. They’ll back you up.”
Browning says neighborhood values are not a substitute for Mom and Dad’s values – closer to an echo.
Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Last revised: August, 15 2006