How and Why Do Neighbourhood Environments Affect Population Mental Health?
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2025) | Viewed by 1637
Special Issue Editor
Interests: geographical health inequalities; spatial epidemiology; urban environments and health
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The Special Issue will address the influence of neighbourhood characteristics and urban settings on mental health and illness, given the extensive evidence of such contextual effects. Different themes that may be relevant include how neighbourhoods and urbanicity are defined (e.g., is urbanicity simply a question of population density?) and the mechanisms through which contextual factors may impact the development of mental illnesses. Adequate characterisation of urbanicity has been found to be an issue in many studies. We, thus, attempt to answer the following questions: Can urbanicity be regarded as having a causal influence on mental health, what methods might be used to establish this influence, and how may it create an adverse environment for individuals with some psychiatric conditions? Biopsychosocial mechanisms (e.g. trauma, cortical thickness, and epigenetic changes) are examples of important factors that may lead to the development of psychopathology. However, much uncertainty exists with regard to how these factors have causal effects. In addition, the protective factor of living in certain neighbourhoods that promote resiliency have not been widely explored.
With regard to the broader literature regarding neighbourhood’s effects on mental health, how do other neighbourhood characteristics (e.g. deprivation, social fragmentation) moderate or mediate the effect of urbanicity? Regarding the geographic patterning of mental illness, first studied by Faris and Dunham, how far does urbanicity explain spatial clustering in such illnesses? The differential impacts of urbanicity between different conditions (e.g. depression versus psychosis) or between socio-demographic groups are also of interest—for example, is the effect of urbanicity enhanced or lessened for particular social and ethnic groups? Also, how do protective contextual mechanisms (e.g. ethnic density effects) counteract urbanicity? International studies (e.g., from LMIC countries) are also of interest, as the evidence base is biased towards developed countries. Health outcomes that are relevant (in terms of their association with urbanicity) extend beyond diagnosed psychiatric conditions per se, for example, psychological distress, attempted suicide, etc.
Prof. Dr. Peter Congdon
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- mental health
- urbanicity
- psychosis
- neighbourhood
- biopsychosocial
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