Neighborhood Characteristics that create Stress may cause Depression

RESEARCH JOURNAL REVIEW:

Cutrona, C. E., Wallace, G., & Wesner, K. A. (2006, August). Neighborhood Characteristics and Depression: An Examination of Stress Processes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 188-192. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00433.x

 I.                   Purpose of the Study (In your own words) –

A.                What were the authors studying and why?

Authors summarized multiple studies in this review about how “neighborhoods with poor-quality housing, few resources, and unsafe conditions impose stress, which can lead to depression.”  These environmental characteristics increase the negative impact of stressors unique to individuals’ personal life and can hamper the formation of supportive interpersonal bonds between people.

Why did the authors study this? It is meaningful for our society to understand the “role of neighborhoods” in a resident’s potential for developing depression because (1) Residents often blame themselves mistakenly instead of recognizing their well-being is genuinely affected “by the context around them” and complications of their locality (2) outsiders don’t understand the extent these residents of impoverished areas are negatively impacted “by their surroundings”, and often erroneously blame these residents’ mental health problems on perceived personality flaws or race instead; (3) treating each impacted person separately is much less efficient than dealing with public health threats on a broader community level. Neighborhoods that subsist with inferior quality resources and lack the benefits of “integration with more prosperous families” may find increased instances of social dilemmas related to “threats to mental health.”

B.                 What did they expect to find (i.e., what were the hypotheses?)

Research studies will find stress links between “neighborhood characteristics and depression.” These characteristics influence how intensely residents are stressed, how vulnerable to depression a person is “following negative events in their lives,” and “interfere with formation of bonds among (other) people” creating limited interpersonal support systems also leading to lessened “informal social control,” deficient social support, and substandard family-role performance. “Neighborhood stressors” often result from scrambling for scarce resources and/or predatory people inhabiting the neighborhood who pose physical threats to other residents. In comparative studies of residents in better, less adverse neighborhoods many of these issues were not as common.

II.                Methodology - Review the basic methods.

A.                How did they measure what they were studying?

When reviewing other studies based on “systematic observations” by researchers and resident surveys, the authors considered how personal vulnerability to depression may be effected by neighborhood characteristics such as physical features (accessibility to basic resources like hospitals, reliable public transit, retail stores, recreational facilities), structural characteristics (percent of neighborhood that are employed, impoverished, educated, minority), and negative functional characteristics (unlawful behavior, social disorder). This consideration was made by statistically getting rid of effects like “individual and family characteristics such as income, education, employment status, age, and race.”

B.                 What type of people were they studying?

The studies in this review analyzed residents of high poverty neighborhoods by U.S. Census tracts (roughly nine city blocks, about 4,000-6,000 residents in each tract), and some studies broke these units down into smaller block groups or face blocks.

III.             Results and Discussion –

A.                What did the researchers find?

Based on comparison to other studies, researchers found that neighborhood stressors may be imposed by physical characteristics or neighborhood residents that pose threats to physical safety. Examples of negative physical characteristics that can cause stress include: lack of accessible resources, high traffic density, low quality housing, etc. Ratings related to the quality of housing predicted depression more often than simple being low income in rural women studied in 2000. Women who moved out of unsatisfactory apartments into Habitat for Humanity homes, showed a decrease in reports of sadness. “Lack of access to needed resources is demoralizing because of the extra effort required to meet daily needs… More refined measures that capture type, accessibility, and distance to community resources are needed.”

“Fear of victimization” is another stressor that impacts the well-being of residents. “Social disorder, not poverty per se… most directly causes depression in areas with high crime rates… for both children and adults.” Other studies shows that impoverished areas with little crime, did not show the same tendencies for depression.

“Vulnerability to depression following negative events” is more likely in bad neighborhoods than in in neighborhoods that have more advantages. “Reasons for this heightened vulnerability may include lack of resources, the absence of role models who provide hope for personal success, and local norms that promote ineffective coping and negative interpretations of events.”

Interpersonal Relationships are put at risk in less advantaged neighborhoods. A 2005 study showed that areas with high turnover, offer less tendency for people to form relationships with their community due to mistrusting neighbors due to high crime rates. “Relationship disruption may have several consequences relevant to depression, including lower levels of informal social control, inadequate social support, and poor family-role performance.

This leads to a lack of “Informal Social Control” in these troubled neighborhoods, people don’t “monitor or control each others’ behavior and norms that permit antisocial or maladaptive behavior may arise… leading to problems like job loss or unintended pregnancies that may turn into depression. A 2002 study showed that comparatively, nicer neighborhoods express disapproval, alert authorities or form watch groups to maintain social niceties in their area.

Residents are areas with high-social disorder often feel their relationships are less supportive, “because support providers themselves are highly burdened. Living in impoverished neighborhoods “appears to weaken the protective power of social resources in people’s lives,” according to a 2003 study. Neighborhood poverty also predicted lower-quality parenting behaviors” and less marital warmth, both of which can contribute to issues with depression.

Cutrona’s earlier 2000 study determined that not everyone has the same reaction to living in unsatisfying neighborhoods. “Some people with particularly resilient personalities can cope successfully, even in dangerous and disorderly neighborhoods. Other people are highly vulnerable to depression (and appear to be significantly harmed psychologically) when they live in adverse surroundings.  The bottom line finding is that “living in disadvantaged and disorderly neighborhoods eventually erode optimism and replaces it with hopelessness and negativity.”

B.                 Did the results support or fail to support the authors' hypotheses?

The results support the authors’ hypotheses. They compared their hypotheses to similar studies.

C.                 What is the meaning of the results?

More attention must be paid to the influence of contextual factors like neighborhood characteristics on mental health.  Additional studies are necessary to find the “most effective ways to mobilize neighborhood residents to meet common goals and improve the context in which they live.”

Neighborhood context has an impact on feelings of well being, above and beyond personal stressors. By increasing stressors, intensifying “reactivity to negative life events” and deterring the growth of healthy interpersonal relationships, neighborhood of residence can influence a “wide range of psychological processes and merits further study.”

Comparative studies where residents were moved into a better area showed better mental health for residents. “Some of the problems associated with low income people should actually be attributed to low-income environments.”

The results of this comparative study mean that changes are necessary for improvements.  Suggestions for improving the design of future studies include: “analyzing family characteristics, using separate samples of residents to obtain information and outcome measures, study processes of factors that facilitate change.” In order to most effectively help these neighborhoods, we must empower residents to organize improvements. City planners must be mindful when designing subsidized housing and promote “economically integrated housing,” by avoiding concentrating poverty into limited areas which breeds “hopelessness, depression and other social problems.”

“Greater collaborations across the disciplines of city planning, economics, sociology, and psychology are needed in generating such data.

IV.             Personal Reflection –

A.                What are your thoughts about the study and the questions asked?

I think the study asks important questions about how we focus studies related to poverty and high-crime areas with greater consideration paid to the potential for depression in residents.  They asked important question about the correlation of factors and causality to mental health issues.

B.                 Does the study relate at all to your interests or life?

This study relates to my interests in helping the less fortunate and providing more balanced decision making in city planning decisions and treatment offerings in low-income areas.

C.                 What did you learn that was new to you?

I learned that more research is needed, and what studies have been done seem to support the author’s supposition that neighborhood characteristics generally have impact on the potential for depression in the residents.

D.                Is there anything missing?

Answered above

E.                 What questions does this study raise for you?

What are good ways to encourage economically integrated neighborhoods? Can treating community mental health issues on a broader level be more cost effective than dealing with individual issues of depression that may one day lead to more costly criminal impacts?

F.                  Do you have any ideas about how to study this concept differently?

I am curious if these trends related to neighborhood characteristics have been measured by researchers outside the United States. An extended review that included international studies on similar topics would be recommended.