Data supporting the geographic validation of urban environmental associations with childhood asthma hospitalisation in New York City, 2009–2023

This dataset supports the study entitled “Do urban environmental associations with childhood asthma hospitalisation generalise across neighbourhoods? Geographic validation in New York City”. The deposited files contain the publicly sourced, harmonised and derived tabular data used to examine the spatial distribution, coefficient stability and predictive transportability of neighbourhood-level associations between the urban environment and childhood asthma hospitalisation in New York City. The study period extends from 2009 to 2023, subject to the availability period of each source dataset. The Excel workbooks include: childhood asthma hospitalisation indicators at the Modified ZIP Code Tabulation Area level; built-environment indicators, including street-tree density, park area, building floor-area ratio and road density; annual air-pollution indicators, including PM2.5 and NO2; neighbourhood socioeconomic indicators, including poverty, unemployment and population-related measures; spatially harmonised analysis-ready datasets; model inputs and outputs underlying the spatial regression, impact decomposition, coefficient-heterogeneity and geographic-validation analyses; source data supporting the principal figures, tables and sensitivity analyses reported in the manuscript; and a source registry and data dictionary documenting variable definitions, units, temporal coverage, geographic units and original public data providers. Two related childhood asthma outcomes are retained and identified separately. The spatial econometric analyses use the observed hospitalisation rate for 172 areas, whereas the complementary predictive analyses use the risk-adjusted hospitalisation rate for 173 areas. These outcomes serve different analytical purposes and should not be treated as interchangeable measures or as direct validation of one another. The deposited data support three main analytical components: spatial clustering of childhood asthma hospitalisation, geographic variation in estimated built-environment associations and out-of-geography predictive validation. The files are intended to facilitate verification and reuse of the analytical workflow. The data do not support individual-level inference or causal interpretation of the reported area-level associations. All health records included in the deposit are publicly available, deidentified and aggregated at the area level. No individual patient records or personally identifiable information are included. Original third-party datasets remain attributable to their respective providers and are subject to the terms and licences specified by those providers. Users should cite both this deposited dataset and the original public data sources when reusing the material.