Negative mood and urban versus rural residence: using proximity to metropolitan statistical areas as an alternative measure of residence.

The purposes of this report is to describe the distribution of reported negative mood by place of residence focusing on proximity to metropolitan statistical areas (MSA's) as an alternative to the traditional urban versus rural residence variable using the 1991 National Health Interview Survey's Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (NHIS-HPDP) supplement. The self-report of negative mood comes from the negative affect items of the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale categorized as high and low presence. The proximity to MSA's is a county-based measure developed as a combination of the MSA/non-MSA residence variable from the NHIS-HPDP and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) adjacency code from the Area Resource File (ARF). The proximity to MSA's measure has four categories: 1. MSA central city 2. MSA not central city 3. non-MSA adjacent (contiguous) to MSA 4. non-MSA not adjacent to MSA The odds ratios for negative mood were 1.24 (95 percent confidence limits [CL] = 1.11,1.38) for MSA central city and 1.26 (95 percent CL = 1.05,1.52) for non-MSA not adjacent to MSA as compared with MSA not central city. The odds ratio for non-MSA adjacent to MSA was not significantly different from MSA not central city. Data are presented by age, sex, race, and education. Thus, the proximity measure demonstrated greater discrimination in rates of negative mood than did urban versus rural or other measures of place of residence.