Regression Toward the Mean in Neighborhood Effects Research

A Geographic Perspective

Journal Article (2025)
Author(s)

Yinhua Tao (Southeast University)

A Petrović (TU Delft - Urban Studies)

Mei Po Kwan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

M van Ham (TU Delft - Urban Studies)

Research Group
Urban Studies
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2025.2504533
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Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Research Group
Urban Studies
Bibliographical Note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.@en
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Abstract

Neighborhood effects research focuses on the residential neighborhood, assuming it as the main spatial context relevant to individual outcomes. Individuals, however, are mobile and visit various spatial contexts other than the residential neighborhoods. This article conceptualizes contextual exposures to socioenvironmental factors in daily activity spaces and their relationship with residential exposures. By introducing regression toward the mean, we argue that mobility-based contextual exposures are, on average, less extreme than residential exposures. Previous neighborhood effects studies therefore tend to underestimate actual spatial contextual effects when they misrepresent residential neighborhood effects as the total contextual effects. Despite improved measurement accuracy with the transition from residence- to mobility-based exposures, we suggest the complexities remaining in the estimation of spatial contextual effects from a geographic perspective. These complexities include a possibly limited extent of neighborhood effects regression across neighborhoods and asymmetrical dispersion of between-individual contextual exposures within each neighborhood.

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