Relationships between historical redlining, contemporary housing market dynamics, racial composition, and mental health in U.S. urban neighborhoods: A conditional process analysis

Historical redlining practices have been linked to a wide range of contemporary social, economic, and health outcomes, including poor mental health. Few studies, however, have investigated the contemporary factors which may explain these lasting associations. We examined features of contemporary housing markets—including property values, homeownership rates, and loan denial rates for home purchase—as possible mediators of historical redlining patterns and contemporary prevalence of poor mental health and assessed neighborhood racial composition as a moderator of these associations. Using data from the CDC PLACES Project (2020 release), American Community Survey (2013–2017), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database (2013–2017), and Historic Redlining Scores Project, we studied 12,047 census tracts in the United States. We found significant indirect effects of historical redlining on contemporary prevalence of poor mental health via neighborhood property values, homeownership rates, and loan denial rates for home purchase. Further, the indirect effect of redlining via relative median property value was conditional on neighborhood racial composition. Our findings suggest properties in historically “A” graded neighborhoods are valued more than those in neighborhoods graded less favorably, and this apparent benefit to property values—and subsequently to residents’ mental health—is greater in neighborhoods where Black residents are underrepresented.