Social
The effect of Section 8 voucher receipt in the Moving to Opportunity Study on perceived racial/ethnic discrimination in Black and Hispanic adolescents Anna Krasnova* Anna Krasnova Dustin T. Duncan Jeremy Kane Kara Rudolph
Background: Section 8 vouchers help low-income families relocate to lower-poverty neighborhoods, but they could also alter school and neighborhood racial/ethnic composition, increasing exposure to perceived racial/ethnic discrimination, which can be harmful to adolescent mental health. We estimated the extent to which voucher receipt affected risk of perceived discrimination in different contexts among adolescents and tested for effect heterogeneity across voucher types, cities, and sexes.
Methods: We selected non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic adolescents (mean age=10.1; SD=0.1) residing in Boston, Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles, with at least one non-missing perceived racial/ethnic discrimination outcome at school, neighborhood, shop, or by police from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO)(n=2200). MTO randomized low-income families to a low poverty voucher (LPV), traditional voucher (TRV), or control group. We utilized the doubly robust adaptive least absolute shrinkage and selection operator to select effect modifiers (self-reported sex and city) in each voucher comparison group and discrimination setting. We estimated the effect of voucher receipt at baseline (1994-1998) on perceived discrimination in 2001-2002, stratifying by the previously identified effect modifiers, and using multiple imputation to address covariate missingness.
Results: Compared to no voucher, on average across cities, LPV receipt reduced the risk of perceived discrimination by police among boys (RD: -0.05; 95% CI: -0.11, 0). In Los Angeles, LPV receipt and TRV receipt, respectively, reduced the risk of perceived school (RD: -0.11; 95% CI: -0.18, -0.03), and neighborhood discrimination (RD: -0.06; 95% CI: -0.11, -0.02).
Conclusion: Offering vouchers to families in low-poverty neighborhoods may lower risk of perceived police, neighborhood, and school discrimination and its harmful effect on adolescent mental health. (U.S. Census Bureau authorization, CBDRB-FY24-CES018-005).