Perceived neighbourhood affluence, mental health and wellbeing influence judgements of threat and trust on our streets: An urban walking study

Preventing common mental health problems by increasing neighbourhood socioeconomic status: a mental health impact assessment in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Neighbourhood socioeconomic status (NSES) has been identified as a determinant of mental health. In this study, we aimed to quantify how many cases of common mental health problems could be prevented by increasing NSES in the most socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and how the increases in NSES would affect mental health inequalities. We used publicly available data for conducting a quantitative Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of two counterfactual policy scenarios. In Scenario 1, we set the NSES to the Rotterdam median score for all neighbourhoods which were below the Rotterdam median. In Scenario 2, we set the NSES score to the Dutch national average socioeconomic status score for the neighbourhoods that were below the national average. We estimated that Scenario 1 could prevent 5847 (95% CI, 2700-7999) or 10.7% of annual cases of common mental health problems, and Scenario 2 could prevent 10 713 (95% CI, 4875-14 799) or 19.6% of annual cases in Rotterdam while also reducing mental health inequalities between neighbourhoods in both scenarios. Given the substantial improvements in population mental health that enhanced neighbourhood socioeconomic conditions would bring, policy implementation is urgently needed.

Within-person, longitudinal associations between neighborhood cohesion and adult mental health: A test of bidirectional relations

BACKGROUND

There is theory and evidence supporting a relationship between neighborhood cohesion and mental health among adult people. However, most studies have used a cross-sectional design, and longitudinal studies have provided mixed support for this hypothesis. Moreover, while neighborhood cohesion is assumed to be a consistent predictor of mental health, the possibility of a reciprocal relation has been overlooked.

AIM

The aim of the current study was to investigate the within-person reciprocal associations between neighborhood cohesion and adult mental health.

METHODS

This study used data from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study including waves 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 (n = 81,895). A short version of Buckner's Neighborhood Cohesion Instrument was used, along with two well-established measures of mental health: the 12-item General Health Questionnaire and the mental component summary score of the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey.

RESULTS

Hierarchical Bayesian continuous time dynamic modeling revealed significant reciprocal within-person cross-effects (i.e. deterministic effects) between neighborhood cohesion and adult mental health, a larger standardized effect of mental health on neighborhood cohesion than than vice versa. Moreover, peak standardized cross-lagged effects were found for a time interval of approximately 1 year. Finally, the combined stochastic and deterministic interpretation revealed effects of neighborhood cohesion on mental health that were opposite to what was expected, suggesting a faster dissipation of some initially correlated change.

CONCLUSION

Although neighborhood cohesion has traditionally been conceptualized in terms of its contribution to mental health, there is greater support for the view that mental health precedes neighborhood cohesion rather than the reverse.

Poverty, ACEs and stigmatised places: The application of psychology to the challenges of disadvantage

BACKGROUND

Our life circumstances present continual challenges to our mental health and well-being. For most of us, the politics of economy and society determine our prospects of living a good life. The fact that the ability to control and change things that happen to us is largely vested in the power of remote others has inevitable, mostly negative consequences.

METHOD

The following opinion piece illustrates the challenge our discipline faces in locating a complimentary contribution alongside those of public health, sociology and other sister disciplines with particular reference to the intractable concerns of poverty, ACES and stigmatised places.

FINDINGS

The piece presents an examination of what psychology as a discipline can do in the context of adversity and challenges that individuals face but over which they have little sense of control. The discipline of psychology needs to play a meaningful part in understanding and addressing the impacts of societal matters, moving from a dominant position of individualised understandings of distress to embrace more fully the context in which people are expected to feel good and function well.

CONCLUSION

Community psychology offers a useful, established philosophy from which to advance our practices. However, a more sophisticated, discipline-wide narrative and grounded understanding that empathically represents real lives and captures individual functioning within a complex and distant societal system is urgently required.

Subjective and objective indicators of neighbourhood safety and physical activity among UK adolescents

BACKGROUND

The health benefits of regular physical activity in adolescence are well-documented and many health-related behaviours are established in adolescence. The neighbourhood environment is a key setting for physical activity for adolescents and feeling unsafe in their neighbourhood may be a potential barrier to physical activity.

AIM

This study aimed to examine associations between neighbourhood safety and physical activity using objective and subjective measures for both.

METHODS

Participants (n = 10,913) came from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative UK longitudinal birth cohort. Linear regression and Zero Inflated Poisson models were used to examine associations between subjective and objective indicators of safety (self-reported safety, Index of Multiple Deprivation crime, Reported Crime Incidence) and physical activity (self-reported weekly and device-measured physical activity).

RESULTS

Adolescents who feel unsafe in their neighbourhood, or who live in areas with high IMD crime or violent crime rates report 0.29 (95% CI -0.49, -0.09) 0.32 (95% CI -0.47, -0.16) and 0.20 (95% CI -0.39, -0.20) fewer days of physical activity, respectively. No associations were found between Reported Crime Incidence and either objective or subjective measures of physical activity.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates varying associations between subjective safety and objective crime with physical activity levels in adolescence, highlighting the complexities around subjective and objective measurements and their associations with health outcomes.

Opening the black box of the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and mental health: Neighborhood social-interactive characteristics as contextual mechanisms

Previous studies have linked low neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) to mental health problems. However, few studies have investigated the mechanisms underlying this association and most focused on the association with negative indicators of mental health, such as symptoms of depression or anxiety. This paper investigated whether neighborhood social characteristics (social interaction, trust, safety, organization participation, and attachment) mediate the association between NSES and mental health. We combined Danish register data with survey data from the North Denmark Region Health Survey 2017. Mental health was assessed with the Rand 12-item Short-form Survey (SF-12). The sample consisted of 14,969 individuals nested in 1047 neighborhoods created with an automated redistricting algorithm. We fitted multilevel structural equation mediation models and used a Monte Carlo simulation method to estimate confidence intervals for the indirect effects. NSES was positively associated with mental health. Neighborhood trust significantly mediated this relationship, accounting for 34% of the association after controlling for other mediators. These results indicate that higher levels of mental health in more affluent neighborhoods are partially explained by higher levels of trust. Improving neighborhood trust could mitigate sociogeographic inequalities in mental health.

The mental health of children and young people living in big cities in a revolving postpandemic world

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The world's population is increasingly urban, with most children and young people growing up and living in cities. Evidence suggests that urbanicity is linked to an increased risk for the development of mental health disorders. Rather than an accumulation of risk factors, urbanization is a complex process that profoundly structures living conditions. In this sense, it is timely to discuss what are the social and structural determinants of mental health of children and young people in such settings.

RECENT FINDINGS

Three domains of determinants of mental health were selected for discussion: economics and living conditions, crime and violence, and urban layouts. For each, we debated realities faced by urban children and young people, providing an overview of recent evidence on implications for mental disorders and well being. We also discuss the potential impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on each domain, as well as recommendations for future action.

SUMMARY

Structural factors are of major relevance for the mental health of children and young people living in cities. The agenda of mental health promotion and prevention must include whole-of-society interventions aimed at improving living conditions, including economic and social capital, violence prevention and urbanistic planning.

The individual, place, and wellbeing - a network analysis

BACKGROUND

Previous research has examined individual-level and place characteristics as correlates of subjective wellbeing, with many studies concluding that individual factors (e.g. health, finances) are more strongly related to wellbeing. However, this 'dualistic' approach has been challenged, with some arguing that it is impossible to disentangle the effects of the two domains, and that wellbeing should be considered as part of a network of mutually reinforcing relationships between individual, community and place characteristics. We used network analysis to explore these complex associations.

METHODS

Data were from a large sample of adults from a socioeconomically disadvantaged region of the United Kingdom (N = 4319). Wellbeing was assessed using the 7-item version of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS). Mixed graphical networks were estimated including wellbeing, place and individual-characteristic variables as nodes.

RESULTS

We found a densely connected network in which wellbeing was associated, both directly and indirectly, with all of the individual, community and place characteristics assessed. Wellbeing was most strongly connected with individual characteristics, in particular financial difficulty and subjective physical health. However, controlling for all other variables in the network model, wellbeing was positively associated with local greenspace usage, civic agency, and neighbourhood cohesion, and negatively associated with housing disrepair. Greater specificity in these associations was observed when the wellbeing construct was broken down into its constituent parts.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings highlight the complex relationships that exist between individual, community and place characteristics in the context of subjective wellbeing, and that all domains need to be considered when developing population-level strategies to improve wellbeing. Further consideration needs to be given to how this might happen in practice, for example through a combination of consistent use of community engagement methodologies alongside Health in All Policy (HiAP) approaches.

Understanding urbanicity: how interdisciplinary methods help to unravel the effects of the city on mental health

Twenty-first century urbanization poses increasing challenges for mental health. Epidemiological studies have shown that mental health problems often accumulate in urban areas, compared to rural areas, and suggested possible underlying causes associated with the social and physical urban environments. Emerging work indicates complex urban effects that depend on many individual and contextual factors at the neighbourhood and country level and novel experimental work is starting to dissect potential underlying mechanisms. This review summarizes findings from epidemiology and population-based studies, neuroscience, experimental and experience-based research and illustrates how a combined approach can move the field towards an increased understanding of the urbanicity-mental health nexus.