Letter to the editor: When local poverty is more important than your income: mental health in minorities in inner cities

Differential analyses of individual-level and neighborhood level socioeconomic factors in native citizens have suggested that the neighborhood context may impact mental health beyond individual differences in income and education. Recent data indicate that the processing of social stress is different in migrants in connection with urbanicity, raising the possibility of additive or interactive effects of these risk factors. We investigated the effects of individual differences in socioeconomic and minority status, as well as of poverty and ethnic composition at the level of urban neighborhoods, on mental health in an inner city population in Berlin, Germany.