by Estelle Berger, M.S., University of Oregon
The places we live and the spaces we inhabit can play a significant role in shaping our mental and general health. This is especially true for children and adolescents as they develop physically, psychologically, and socially. Below, I critically discuss the literature on this topic.
Currently, over half of the global population lives in cities, and UNICEF estimates that 70% of the world’s children will reside in urban areas by year 2050 (UNICEF, 2022). Taking a social ecological perspective, we know from Bronfenbrenner’s Model (1977) that context matters. At the scale of the neighborhood, mesosystemic (the interaction between family and place) and macrosystemic (the available social and structural resources) factors deeply inform child development (Wang et al., 2020). With this in mind, it is critical to consider the features of an urban neighborhood that can facilitate positive development, especially as it pertains to mental health and well-being.
There are many dimensions of a neighborhood that might explain the mechanistic pathway from place to psychopathology–social determinants such as access to education, employment, and stable housing (Compton & Shim, 2015), proximity and engagement with greenspace (White et al., 2021), air and noise pollution (Klompmaker et al., 2019), and social cohesion (Odgers et al., 2017). Taken together, the duty to modify these various levers is dispersed across the individual to the policymaker to the urban planner to the environmental engineer.
When researchers conceptualize the effects of neighborhood characteristics on mental health, they point to both structural and psychological features (Roux & Mair, 2010; Anglin et al., 2021). Scientists have found that physical disorder, signs of decay, and the presence of traffic or noise or transportation problems are often associated with increased levels of depressive symptoms. Additionally, Anglin et al. (2021) examined the linkages between more abstract spatial features—like the fear of being pushed out of one’s neighborhood due to increased price of housing and gentrification—in association with greater odds of endorsing a psychotic experience.
A possible mechanism that might explain how adverse features of the physical and social environment might “get under the skin” is through the body’s response to stress. For kids, repeated and ongoing exposure to stressful situations, like fearing violence or living in a neighborhood with high light and sound pollution, can result in an increased allostatic load, which has direct and indirect effects on gene expression, brain development, and well-being (Jutte et al., 2015). Preliminary research has indicated that a possible way to buffer against the effects of chronic stress is to implement resilience-building programs within school curricula (Richards et al., 2016). Rather than place the onus on the child or family, schools have an opportunity to take responsibility for protecting their students from the psychological fallout of ongoing stress.
An important consideration for future research is to note that these compositional characteristics of the neighborhood might neglect to acknowledge the actual experiences and perceptions of youth. Flynn and Mathias (2020) make the case for integrating qualitative accounts of young people’s experiences living within their environments when trying to understand neighborhood effects. They argue that Census-delineated blocks and zones are unable to capture the “socially constructed definition of neighborhood, whereby residents develop a unique pathway of activities throughout their daily travels” (Flynn & Mathias, 2020, p.484). While they do not specifically analyze how individualized definitions of place might impact well-being, they do provide a framework for future researchers as they continue to understand the effect of place on person.
Researchers have also examined the ways in which positive aspects of the social environment, which is often measured by looking at social cohesion and giving behaviors between neighbors, can be protective against psychopathology (Odgers et al., 2009). On the structural level, building a connected and supportive community through better transportation, more parks and sidewalks, and other community resources can help to buffer the stress that might contribute to the onset of depression among youth. When it comes to building strong neighborhoods that promote positive mental health among youth, the responsibility should not solely lie with the individual or the family in caring for their children. While these proximal factors that define a child’s microsystem are undoubtedly integral to health development, policymakers, urban planners, and community groups have an important role to play (Macintyre et al., 2018; Sinha et al., 2019). Effective interventions involve multi-sector partnerships that integrate adolescent voices and privilege community needs (Castillo et al., 2019). It takes a village to raise a child, so perhaps it takes a neighborhood to support their mental health.
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References
Anglin, D. M., Ereshefsky, S., Klaunig, M. J., Bridgwater, M. A., Niendam, T. A., Ellman, … van der Ven, E. (2021). From Womb to Neighborhood: A Racial Analysis of Social Determinants of Psychosis in the United States. American Journal of Psychiatry, appi.ajp.2020.2. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20071091
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513.
Castillo, E. G., Ijadi-Maghsoodi, R., Shadravan, S., Moore, E., Mensah, M. O., Docherty, M., … Wells, K. B. (2019). Community Interventions to Promote Mental Health and Social Equity. Current Psychiatry Reports, 21(5), 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-019-1017-0
Compton, M. T., & Shim, R. S. (2015). The Social Determinants of Mental Health. FOCUS, 13(4), 419–425. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20150017
Flynn, K., & Mathias, B. (2020). “I would say it’s alive”: Understanding the social construction of place, identity, and neighborhood effects through the lived experience of urban young adults. Qualitative Social Work, 19(3), 481–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325020911673
Jutte, D. P., Miller, J. L., & Erickson, D. J. (2015). Neighborhood Adversity, Child Health, and the Role for Community Development. PEDIATRICS, 135(Supplement), S48–S57. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-3549F
Klompmaker, J. O., Hoek, G., Bloemsma, L. D., Wijga, A. H., van den Brink, C., Brunekreef, B., Lebret, E., Gehring, U., & Janssen, N. A. H. (2019). Associations of combined exposures to surrounding green, air pollution and traffic noise on mental health. Environment International, 129, 525–537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.05.040
Macintyre, A., Ferris, D., Gonçalves, B., & Quinn, N. (2018). What has economics got to do with it? The impact of socioeconomic factors on mental health and the case for collective action. Palgrave Communications, 4(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0063-2
Odgers, C. L., Moffitt, T. E., Tach, L. M., Sampson, R. J., Taylor, A., Matthews, C. L., & Caspi, A. (2009). The protective effects of neighborhood collective efficacy on British children growing up in deprivation: A developmental analysis. Developmental Psychology, 45(4), 942. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016162
Richards, M., Romero, E., Deane, K., Carey, D., Zakaryan, A., Quimby, D., G, … Patel, N. (2016). Civic Engagement Curriculum: A Strengths-Based Intervention Serving African American Youth in a Context of Toxic Stress. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 9(1), 81–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-015-0062-z
Roux, A. V. D., & Mair, C. (2010). Neighborhoods and health. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186(1), 125–145. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05333.x
Sinha, M., Collins, P., & Herrman, H. (2019). Collective action for young people’s mental health: The citiesRISE experience. World Psychiatry, 18(1), 114–115. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20615
UNICEF. (2022). Child Friendly Cities Initiative. Retrieved February 2, 2022, from https://childfriendlycities.org/growing-cities/
Wang, D., Choi, J.-K., & Shin, J. (2020). Long-term Neighborhood Effects on Adolescent Outcomes: Mediated through Adverse Childhood Experiences and Parenting Stress. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49(10), 2160–2173. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01305-y
White, M.P., Elliott, L.R., Grellier, J. et al. Associations between green/blue spaces and mental health across 18 countries. Sci Rep 11, 8903 (2021). https://doi-org.libproxy.uoregon.edu/10.1038/s41598-021-87675-0
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