The Effect of Neighborhood Crime Rates on Childhood Obesity in Los Angeles County

Author

Lachlan MontgomeryFollow

Graduation Year

2019

Date of Submission

4-2019

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Second Department

Government

Reader 1

Janet Smith

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

©2019 Lachlan D Montgomery

Abstract

This thesis examines the effect of neighborhood crime rates on childhood obesity in Los Angeles County over a five-year period 2012-2016. Using yearly pooled cross-sectional geocoded data from the University of Southern California (USC) Price Center for Social Innovation Neighborhood Data for Social Change (NDSC) interactive platform, I run multiple ordinary least squares regressions using different measures of crime to determine if neighborhoods with higher crime rates influence the unhealthy percentage of 5^th, 7^th, and 9^thgrade public school students. I hypothesize that crime influences obesity, violent crime has a stronger correlation than property crime, and that greater parks access reduces obesity. My regression results fail to support hypotheses one and two. Hypothesis three is supported by the available data.

Recommended Citation

Montgomery, Lachlan, "The Effect of Neighborhood Crime Rates on Childhood Obesity in Los Angeles County" (2019). CMC Senior Theses. 2247.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2247