This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new University of Canterbury-led study of almost 1 million young people in New Zealand shows the environments they live in may be linked to their mental health over time. Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) researcher Dr.
Lukáš Marek, in the School of Earth and Environment, says the findings add important evidence to conversations about how communities, neighborhoods and cities are planned. "The main message is that the environment actually matters," Marek says. "People who experience better environments tend to have better mental health, but what a better environment means can be different for different people." The study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, used data from 2013 to 2018 to follow 957,381 young people aged 10 to 24.
Researchers linked mental health outcomes with the environments young people lived in, using a measure called the Healthy Location Index (HLI). The HLI brings together 10 features of the built and natural environment, including health-promoting features such as supermarkets, places for physical activity, green spaces such as parks and reserves, and blue spaces such as rivers, lakes and coastlines, as well as health-constraining features such as fast-food outlets, alcohol outlets and gaming venues. Most research tends to look at one environmental factor in isolation, such as access to parks or proximity to alcohol outlets.
This study took a more holistic approach. "If we want to plan for better mental health, we need to consider what is in the area as a whole," Marek says. The findings suggest the places young people live, and the mix of features they are surrounded by, may play a role in supporting or constraining mental health.
Access to natural environments, particularly a mix of green and blue spaces, was associated with better mental health outcomes. Associate professor Matt Hobbs, from UC's Faculty of Health, says the clearest pattern was that greater exposure to health-constraining environments was associated with poorer mental health, particularly emotional disorders. "Young people living in areas with less access to those health-constraining features had lower odds of emotional disorders, while living in predominantly health-constraining environments was associated with higher odds.
There was also some evidence of higher odds of substance use and self-harm hospitalizations in these environments." He says the findings also have implications for how neighborhoods and communities are designed. "Where young people live shapes the opportunities and exposures they experience every day. Our findings suggest that creating healthier places is not just about changing individual behaviors or singular aspects of the environment—it is also about designing environments that make healthy choices easier and reduce exposure to features that may negatively affect well-being." The scale of the study allowed researchers to examine how multiple aspects of the environment may work together over time.
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