Household Income Moderates Longitudinal Relations Between Neighborhood Child Opportunity Index and BMI Growth.

To examine longitudinal associations of early neighborhood Child Opportunity Index 2.0 (COI) with children's BMI trajectories and identify whether household economic resources moderate relations of COI in infancy/toddlerhood and the preschool years to longitudinal BMI growth between 2 and 12 years. Family data ( = 1091) were drawn from the Family Life Project, a longitudinal study of families residing in rural high-poverty areas. Neighborhood COI was obtained for each developmental period: infancy/toddlerhood (2-15 months) and the preschool years (2-5 years). BMIs were created from anthropometrics collected at six time points. Higher neighborhood COIs during the infancy/toddlerhood ( = -0.0130, < 0.01) and preschool years ( = -0.0093, < 0.05) were associated with lower BMI at 5 years of age; although the latter became nonsignificant after adjusting for infancy/toddlerhood COI. Both household income and time spent in poverty moderated associations of infancy/toddlerhood exposure to neighborhood COI with BMI change. Among children residing in not poor households, higher neighborhood level child opportunity was associated with a slower increase in BMI from 2 to 12 years ( = -0.0369, < 0.05), and a lower BMI at 12 years ( = -0.0395, < 0.05). Neighborhood COI during the infant and toddler years is longitudinally associated with child growth, and long-term associations are evident among children residing in not poor households. Future work is needed to better understand how family and neighborhood-level resources interact to influence obesity risk, particularly for those at high risk.