Local neighbourhood and mental health: evidence from the UK.

This paper examines the association between neighbourhood and levels and changes in common mental disorders. Using data from a large scale nationally representative survey of individuals and households (the British Household Panel Survey), it locates individuals in their local neighbourhoods. These are defined as the nearest 500-800 persons centered around each individual in the survey. These 'bespoke' neighbourhoods are characterised according to five dimensions--disadvantage, mobility, age, ethnicity and urbanness--derived from factor analysis of the census characteristics of the residents of neighbourhoods in 1991. These dimensions measure characteristics of place that have been argued to be associated with mental ill health. The paper estimates multilevel models of the level and 5-year changes of common mental disorders (measured by the twelve item version of the General Health Questionnaire). Three and two level models are estimated, all of which allow for individual and household characteristics that may act as confounders of any neighbourhood effect. The results show the extent of association between neighbourhood and both levels and changes in mental health is limited. Less than one percent of the variance across individuals is at the neighbourhood level. The neighbourhood characteristics are not generally statistically associated with levels or changes in mental ill health. There is some evidence of interaction between neighbourhood characteristics and gender and ethnicity, but while statistically significant these interactions are small in size compared to the main effects of individual and household characteristics. What appears to be important for levels of common mental disorders are the observed characteristics of individuals and their households, not of place.

[1]  R. Dietz.  The estimation of neighborhood effects in the social sciences: An , 2002 .

[2]  A. Bowling.  Measuring Health. A review of quality of life measurement scales , 1997 .

[3]  R. Turner,et al.  The stress process and the social distribution of depression. , 1999, Journal of health and social behavior.

[4]  E. Silver,et al.  Neighborhood structural characteristics and mental disorder: Faris and Dunham revisited. , 2002, Social science & medicine.

[5]  D. Dorling,et al.  Suicide: the spatial and social components of despair in Britain 1980–2000 , 2003 .

[6]  Paul D. Williams,et al.  A user's guide to the General Health Questionnaire , 1988 .

[7]  I. Kawachi,et al.  Women's status and depressive symptoms: a multilevel analysis. , 2005, Social science & medicine.

[8]  Catherine E. Ross,et al.  Neighborhood disadvantage and adult depression , 2000 .

[9]  R. Faris,et al.  Mental Disorders in Urban Areas: An Ecological Study of Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses , 1939 .

[10]  Ronald W. Manderscheid,et al.  Neighborhood characteristics and mental illness , 1998 .

[11]  Felicia A. Huppert,et al.  The health and lifestyle survey. Preliminary report of a nationwide survey of the physical and mental health, attitudes and lifestyle of a random sample of 9,003 British adults. , 1987 .

[12]  C. Ross,et al.  The Contingent Meaning of Neighborhood Stability for residents’ psychological well-being , 2000, American Sociological Review.

[13]  T. Harpham,et al.  Mental health and social capital in Cali, Colombia. , 2004, Social science & medicine.

[14]  Ingrid Gould Ellen,et al.  Neighborhood Effects on Health: Exploring the Links and Assessing the Evidence , 2001 .

[15]  C. Propper,et al.  Scale, Factor Analyses, and Neighborhood Effects , 2004 .

[16]  S. Weich,et al.  Material standard of living, social class, and the prevalence of the common mental disorders in Great Britain. , 1998, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[17]  G. Moon,et al.  Psychiatric morbidity: a multilevel approach to regional variations in the UK. , 1995, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[18]  I. Kawachi,et al.  State income inequality, household income, and maternal mental and physical health: cross sectional national survey , 2000, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[19]  C. Muntaner,et al.  Socioeconomic position and major mental disorders. , 2004, Epidemiologic reviews.

[20]  S. Weich,et al.  Geographic variation in the prevalence of common mental disorders in Britain: a multilevel investigation. , 2003, American journal of epidemiology.

[21]  G. Lewis,et al.  Regional differences in mental health in Great Britain. , 1992, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[22]  Nick Buck,et al.  Identifying Neighbourhood Effects on Social Exclusion , 2001 .

[23]  S. Jenkins,et al.  Documentation for Derived Current and Annual Net Household Income Variables , 1999 .

[24]  A. Oswald,et al.  Unhappiness and Unemployment , 1994 .

[25]  Mildred Blaxter.  THE HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE SURVEY , 2003 .

[26]  N. Rice,et al.  A longitudinal analysis of mental health mobility in Britain. , 2004, Health economics.

[27]  A. Mcculloch.  Ward-Level Deprivation and Individual Social and Economic Outcomes in the British Household Panel Study , 2001 .