The neighbourhood effect on mental well-being in the Global South

ABSTRACT

Although individual mental health is a growing concern for the Global South, the southern literature on health and planning has paid limited attention to space-sensitive neighbourhood studies on addressing the crisis. This paper highlights the importance of a holistic neighbourhood environment in shaping the mental well-being of citizens. Through a cross-sectional study of 14,222 households in 272 neighbourhoods of 13 cities across seven countries, the paper claims that there is a place effect on the mental well-being of citizens in rapidly urbanising Asian and African cities. This study demonstrates that the diverse physical and social attributes of neighbourhoods influence mental well-being. Better coverage of neighbourhood services, improved waste disposal services, quality neighbourhood health facilities and educational opportunities, high family solvency, safety, trust in neighbours, dwelling satisfaction, and habits of exercise are found to be the most influential attributes for good mental well-being. However, institutional attributes, like political leadership for neighbourhood management and neighbourhood-level associations, are less likely to be associated with good mental well-being. As the significance of influential attributes varies among neighbourhood wealth categories, cities and countries, a shift towards a place- and context-specific neighbourhood approach for policymaking can best address the mental well-being in rapidly urbanising cities in the Global South.

KEYWORDS:

• Neighbourhood
• mental well-being
• health
• physical and social environment
• Global South

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Prof. Ya Ping Wang, PI of The GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC), all the Co-investigators: Prof. Keith Kintrea, Prof. Michael Osborne, Prof. Michele Schweisfurth, Prof. Richard Mitchell, Prof. Amini Kamete, Dr Jing Yao from the University of Glasgow, Prof. Ivan Turok from HSRC Human Sciences Research Council, Prof. David Everatt from the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, Prof. Debolina Kundu from the National Institute of Urban Affairs, Prof. Mario delos Reyes from the University of the Philippines, Prof. Tao Sun from Nankai University, Dr Vincent Manirakiza from the University of Rwanda, and Dr Francis William Levira from the Ifakara Health Institute and their teams for their contribution in designing the questionnaire, monitoring data collection, their quality checks and the cleaning. We are also thankful to Hasibul Hasan Shanto and Ferdous Hussain for their involvement in the data preparation and data analysis intended for this paper. Finally, our heartfelt gratitude goes to the three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments that contributed to the improvement of this paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted as part of The GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) activities. SHLC is funded via UK Research and Innovation as part of the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund [Ref: ES/P011020/1].

Notes on contributors

Shilpi Roy

Shilpi Roy is an Associate Professor of Urban and Rural Planning Discipline at Khulna University, Bangladesh. She was the In-Country Lead and Co-investigator of the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighborhoods (SHLC) project funded by UKRI.

Tanjil Sowgat

Tanjil Sowgat is a professor of Urban and Rural Planning at Khulna University, Bangladesh. Tanjil’s research interests include segregation, poverty, urbanization, equity planning, and creative impact methods.