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ABSTRACT
Women in urban neighborhoods often face disproportionately higher levels of environmental and social stressors; however, the health effects from urban stressors remain poorly understood. We evaluated the association between urban stress and depression, fatigue, and sleep disruption in a cohort of 460 women in Mexico City. To assess urban stress, women were administered the Urban Annoyances scale. Six constructs were summarized to create an overall index. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Edinburgh Depression Scale; the Patient-Reported Outcomes Information System scales were used to assess sleep disruption and fatigue. Linear regression models were used to estimate the association with continuous symptoms comparing women with high stress to those with lower levels. Models were adjusted for socioeconomic status, education, age, social support, and previous depressive symptoms. High urban stress was associated with greater depressive symptoms (β: 1.77; 95% CI: 0.83, 2.71), fatigue (β: 2.47; 95% CI: 0.87, 4.07), and sleep disruption (β: 2.14; 95% CI: 0.54, 3.73). Urban stress plays an important role in women’s psychological and physical health, highlighting the importance of including these measures in environmental health studies. Urban interventions, such as promoting alternative transport options, should additionally be addressed to improve health of urban populations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Research ethics approval
Protocols were approved by the institutional review boards at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Harvard School of Public Health, and Mexican National Institute of Public Health. All women provided informed consent.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2023.2218159.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Laura A. McGuinn
Laura A. McGuinn is an environmental epidemiologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. For this research project she worked with collaborators (Maria José Rosa, Erika Osorio-Valencia, Iván Gutiérrez-Avila, Homero Harari, Itai Kloog, Rosalind J. Wright, Mara Téllez-Rojo, Robert O. Wright, Marcela Tamayo-Ortiz) from the Programming Research in Obesity, GRowth, Environment and Social Stress (PROGRESS) longitudinal birth cohort study in Mexico City, Mexico.