As the title of this article implies, it examines the link between the urban built environment and depression.The piece is based on a study of 1355 New Yorkers. Their neighbourhoods (which numbered around 59) were examined along with other factors such as income, gender, ethnicity, age, etc, and compared with their mental health.
In adjusted models, persons living in neighbourhoods characterised by poorer features of the built environment were 29%-58% more likely to report past six month depression and 36%-64% more likely to report lifetime depression than respondents living in neighbourhoods characterised by better features of the built environment.
Conclusions: Living in neighbourhoods characterised by a poor quality built environment is associated with a greater likelihood of depression. Future prospective work designed to assess potential mechanisms underlying these associations may guide public health and urban planning efforts aimed at improving population mental health. (pp. 822)The survey was taken of non-institutionalised adults over the age of 18 and was created to report on the mental health of NYC citizens after 2001, September 11 attacks. It focused strongly on residents located in neighbourhoods close to the site of the World Trade Center.
The respondents to the survey were questioned about feelings of depression experienced either in their lifetime or in the last six months (since 9/11).
psychosocial stress explanation
poor quality built environments expose residents to more 'daily stressors and hassels' (825) which puts more strain on them and results in a 'greater likelihood of depressions' (825)
concentrated disadvantage explanation
suggests a number of factors in a built environment are responsible for mental health problems. Such factors include absence of green space, noise exposure, possibility of greater likelihood of being exposed to violence or trauma.
social drift explanation (seems to be prefer by this survey, though they admit it is likely that all three explanations play a part)
suggests that people with poor mental health are more likely to move to neighbourhoods with poor quality built environments.
They've spent much of the article stating and restating that they are taking differences in income into account in such a way as to stop the variation in income from effecting their results, but I'm not sure how they've done this (the article is incredibly dry). However, this seems like a kind of shocking conclusion to come to, it seems as though it is saying 'you would have to be mentally ill to live in some of these neighbourhoods'.
However, we show an association between quality of the built environment and likelihood of depression independent of neighbourhood socioeconomic status. It is unlikely that social drift would manifest as persons with mental disorder moving to neighbourhoods with poor built environment, within strata of overall neighbourhood socioeconomic status. Also, the observed associations were independent of individual income.his suggests that conditional on income levels, persons with depression are more likely to be living in neighbourhoods with poor quality built environments. Again, it seems unlikely to expect that within income strata persons with depressive symptoms will be more likely to move to or remain in poor quality urban areas. Reverse causation, however, may be an explanation for these findings; people with depression may be less likely to pay attention to their usual activities, including taking care of the built environment in which they live. (p.825)
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