Perceived Efficacy and Control for Neighborhood Change: the Cross-Cutting Role of Collective Efficacy

Can We Barter Local Taxes for Maintaining Our Green? A Psychological Perspective

Previous research highlighted that the desire for neighborhood improvement is an antecedent of the citizens’ involvement in green urban areas maintenance. Nevertheless, the topic of civic participation in the maintenance of green areas is not yet well developed in the literature and a link with local legislation is missing. We investigate the intention of participation in such maintenance through a web-based experiment. We hypothesize that stimuli of poor (vs. good) maintenance will be associated with a higher intention of contributing to the upkeep of green areas following the administrative barter law. The administrative barter is a law approved in Italy, which gives citizens the possibility of a reduction of local taxes in exchange for their involvement in the improvement of the territory. One hundred ninety-six participants (M_age = 33.81) were assigned randomly to good maintenance condition (n = 100) or poor maintenance condition (n = 96). The level of maintenance was manipulated through photographs of a neighborhood depicting good or poor maintenance of the urban green ornamentation. Results pointed out that people showed a greater willingness to engage in the improvement of green urban areas in the poor condition as compared to the good condition, according to the administrative barter law. This study suggests that local legislation may provide an incentive fostering citizens’ involvement in green urban areas maintenance.

A mutual process of healing self and healing the community: A qualitative study of coping with and healing from stress, adversity, and trauma among diverse residents of a midwestern city

Residents of urban American neighborhoods facing economic hardship often experience individual and collective adversities at high levels. This study explores how racially diverse adults experience stress, adversity, and trauma, and how they cope and heal in the context of their environment. Following a critical realist grounded theory methodology, four focus groups were conducted with African American, White and Latinx participants (N = 21) within an employment service program. Participants identified key stressors ranging from financial and job challenges, violence, and trauma. To cope with and heal from adversity, they practiced positivity, named trauma and its effects, sought social connection, envisioned community-based resources, and addressed structural and systemic barriers. The data generated a theory of "a mutual process of healing self and healing the community" through intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural change. The results of this study indicate a need for peer-led, community-engaged initiatives and holistic, trauma-informed, healing-centered practices.

How Do Community Planning Features Affect the Place Relationship of Residents? An Investigation of Place Attachment, Social Interaction, and Community Participation

Outdoor environment can have significant connections with place relationships. This study tried to explore the connection in detail. First, the relationship was examined through an integrated view of environmental planning, followed by reviewing impacts of essential elements from the outdoor environment on place relationships. Residents of three public housing communities in Taiwan were surveyed. Each community had a different layout: alley, cluster, and large courtyard. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that outdoor community planning features can be grouped into four factors: outdoor space quality, circulation planning, outdoor recreational facilities, and community layout. Canonical correlation analyses indicate different combinations of these factors were connected to diverse combinations of place relationship dimensions. More importantly, higher levels of satisfaction toward outdoor space quality as well as community layout were associated with greater place attachment and less community participation. Higher levels of satisfaction with circulation planning were connected to greater place attachment and community participation, and less social interaction. Multiple regression analyses found the associations between the community planning features and place relationship dimensions differed among the alley, cluster, and large courtyard. These findings can help planners and architects design public housing and similar communities that better enhance the emotional and social experiences of the inhabitants.

Technology as a Means to Address Disparities in Mental Health Research: A Guide to "Tele-Tailoring" your Research Methods

We must include rural participants in health-related research if we are to address health-related disparities and inequity, particularly in mental health. However, the first step of the research process, in person, witnessed, signed informed consent is often a limiting factor and insurmountable barrier to precisely the type of research (e.g., telehealth) designed to overcome barriers of geographic distance and travel time. Telehealth, or the provision of medical care or services to patients by means of audio/video and procedure-specific technology, addresses some barriers to health created by rurality by making health care professionals more accessible to patients. A logical complement to telehealth is "teleconsent." Teleconsent can be defined as using remote, facial integrated identity verification to allow (a) remote guidance of participants through consent documents, and (b) digital signing by all parties, obviating the need for in person signed consent. The ability to review and sign consent documents via telehealth with synchronous viewing is a novel, innovative means by which to overcome the initial significant barrier to recruitment of rural participants into healthcare research. By leveraging the growing capabilities of telehealth, teletailoring studies can improve the efficiency of research recruitment and facilitate the consent process for under-represented populations in research. Strategies for implementation are clearly relevant to increasing the success of clinical trial recruitment.