Assessing the degree of urbanisation using a single-item self-report measure: a validation study

ABSTRACT

The differential impact of rural versus urban residence on mental health remains a controversial topic that requires more in-depth investigations. This calls for a valid and easy measure to assess the degree of urbanisation. The purpose of the present study was to determine the utility of a single-item self-report measure (SIDU) as a tool to classify areas along the rural-urban continuum. The validity of the SIDU was assessed by comparing its scores (1–7) to a commonly used objective surrogate measure of the degree of urbanisation (i.e. surrounding address density, SAD) in two independent older adult samples (A: N = 36, 65+; B: N = 121, 55+). SIDU scores approximated SAD scores, with r = .77 to 0.82, (A), and r = .79 to 0.83 (B). A SIDU threshold score of 6 most accurately distinguished extremely urbanised areas from other areas. Altogether, our findings suggest that SIDU scores could be used as proxy of SAD. Since self-report leaves room for the consideration of additional aspects that confer an urban settlement, this single-item scale may be even more comprehensive, and circumvents the collection and handling of highly sensitive location data when the primary goal is solely to distinguish urbanisation subgroups.

KEYWORDS:

• degree of urbanisation
• self-report measure
• rural
• urban
• older adults
• classification

Acknowledgements

We thank both Prof. R. W. Wiers (Centre for Urban Mental Health & Dept. of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Prof. C.L.H. Bockting (Centre for Urban Mental Health & Academic Medical Center, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands) for providing comments on the manuscript, and Prof. R.W. Wiers for his valuable suggestions for the analysis as well.

Author contributions

L.B. designed the study protocol and arranged data collection of both samples; L.B. cleaned the data and performed the analyses and interpretation undersupervision of S.W., K.R.R., H.K., and J.M.. LB. drafted the paper and S.W., K.R.R., H.K., and J.M. provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final version of the paper for submission.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statements

This study was reviewed and approved by the local ethics committee of the University of Amsterdam (2020-CP-12248, 2020-DP-12556, 2021-DP-13798) and was conducted in accord with relevant laws and institutional guidelines. Informed consent from study participants was obtained online. Participants provided consent by clicking an acceptance box at the bottom of the agreement.

Open practices

All data and materials are made publicly available via FigShare and can be accessed at 10. 21942/uva.16836805.

Notes

1. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), OJ 2016 L 119/1 <http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/2016-05-04>

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Centre for Urban Mental Health, a Research Priority Area at the University of Amsterdam.