https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6652-5454
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Wei Xu, Michal Engelman, Kristen Malecki, Christina Kamis, Amy Schultz, Megan Agnew, Sarah Salas, Xu et al respond to “Invited commentary: improving spatial exposure data for everyone—life-course social context and ascertaining residential history”, American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 194, Issue 3, March 2025, Pages 578–579, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwae243
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Sims et al’s nuanced commentary1 on our article2 raises critical considerations for the construction and use of residential histories in population-based research. We wholeheartedly agree that historical and contemporary social processes are central to understanding spatial exposures. We also appreciate the productive tension between capturing the holistic complexity of contextual exposures and the reductionism of quantitative analysis. We hope this exchange will encourage more attention to selection bias and further inquiry into the multifaceted and bidirectional relationships between people and places.
Our construction of residential histories was motivated by life-course theory’s emphasis on historical time and geographic place,3 sociological insight into the intersection of personal biography and change over time,4 and relational geography’s emphasis on the dynamic, fluid, and reciprocal relationship between people and the places they occupy.5 Working with a Wisconsin cohort, we paid special attention to Milwaukee, where decades of redlining, racist freeway planning, White flight, and systematic disinvestment shaped patterns of residential segregation and (im)mobility with implications for persistent socioeconomic and health inequities.6-8
