Can neighborhoods protect residents from mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic? Evidence from Wuhan

Abstract

Neighborhoods have begun to play an increasingly prominent role in shaping mental health during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic because residents are spending more time at home and in their immediate neighborhoods. Using data collected from 3,031 urban residents during the COVID-19 lockdown of Wuhan, China’s earliest epicenter, this study investigates the relationship between neighborhoods’ social infrastructure and residents’ mental distress. Results of structural equation modeling estimation reveal that services provided by urban residents’ committees (cheng shi ju wei hui) and volunteer groups significantly decrease the adverse impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on residents’ mental health in a Chinese context, and social cohesion is one of the mechanisms underpinning this influence. Residents’ committees and volunteer groups are found to increase their support when neighborhoods are facing an escalated level of COVID-19 risk. The residents who receive more support from their neighborhood organizations perceive a higher level of social cohesion and experience less mental distress. The findings suggest that mobilizing neighborhoods’ organizational resources and fostering social cohesion are crucial strategies to minimizing residents’ mental distress during COVID-19 pandemic.

Acknowledgment

The data used in this article were jointly collected by the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER) at New York University Shanghai, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. The authors are grateful to all of the project team members for their contributions—especially to Drs. Xiaogang Wu, Yanrong Wang, and Xiaoguang Li; Mr. Dawei Liu; and Mr. Yizhou Ye. Please direct any correspondence to Jia Miao (email address: [email protected]), Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER), New York University Shanghai, 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China

Notes

1 The residential committee staff were required to distribute information about the number of confirmed cases in the neighborhood in a timely manner. The research team asked the respondents to collect this information when they answered the questionnaire. Information was collected from approximately 440 neighborhoods.

2 The total effect of performance of residents’ committees on mental health is −0.091 [−0.078 + 0.076*(−0.173)], the effects mediated by social cohesion is −0.013 [0.076*(−0.173)]. Thus, 14.3% [(−0.013)/(−0.091)] of total effects of residents’ committees’ services is mediated by social cohesion.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Collaborative Research Fund [C6011-16GF] of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong.

Notes on contributors

Jia Miao

Jia Miao (Ph.D., HKUST, 2017) is a Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of New York Shanghai. Her research interests include neighborhood and health inequality. Her studies on neighborhood mainly focus on neighborhood effects on health outcomes and the relevant social processes. She is particularly interested in how the neighborhood physical and social environment affect the subjective well-being of the older population in mainland China and Hong Kong. Her research on health inequality centers on how socioeconomic conditions at macro-level interact with individual attributes and then shape health trajectory of people from diverse social background.

Donglin Zeng

Donglin Zeng (Ph.D., HKUST, 2019) is a post-doctoral researcher from the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include neighborhood effects, segregation, geographic information system(GIS), and migration. He is particularly interested in the application of spatial analysis to study the association between residential context and the well-beings of individuals. His recent studies investigate how residential segregation affects social adaptation of individuals in Chinese cities.

Zhilei Shi

Zhilei Shi (Ph.D., ZUEL, 2011) is a Professor from Population and Health Research Center (PHRC), Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. His research interests include health inequality, demography, and migration. His recent studies, along the time axis of the life course to trace the interaction between individuals and early families and to find how this experience and the subsequent accumulative disadvantage cause the differentiation in the health of individuals or groups.