Longitudinal mental health associations of relocation to supportive versus adverse neighborhood environments in the Netherlands

Background

Mental health status may be associated with residential neighborhoods’ physical and social characteristics; however, longitudinal evidence is limited, and the findings are inconsistent.

Objectives

To examine the longitudinal associations between neighborhood physical and social environments and mental health among adults after residential relocation.

Methods

We used national-representative panel data of 3000 adults between 2008 and 2013 in the Netherlands. We included movers relocating to neighborhood environments identified as health-supportive or adverse; non-movers served as the control group. Mental health was measured pre- and post-move using the Mental Health Inventory. Time-varying exposure to physical environmental factors (i.e., green space, blue space, air pollution, and population density) and social environmental factors (i.e., socioeconomic deprivation and social fragmentation) were assigned based on adults’ residential neighborhood histories. We used propensity score matching to select non-movers from the control group and difference-in-difference regressions to estimate the associations between environmental changes and mental health.

Results

Our results showed that decreases in fine particulate matter (β = −3.869, 95% CI: [-7.583, −0.155]), population density (β = −5.893, 95% CI: [-9.468, −2.319]), and socioeconomic deprivation (β = −4.756, 95% CI: [-7.800, −1.712]) were significantly associated with improvements in mental health. An increase in neighborhood social fragmentation was significantly associated with improvements in mental health (β = −3.520, 95% CI: [-6.742, −0.298]). We observed null associations between changes in mental health due to changes in green and blue space.

Conclusions

Following relocation, changed neighborhood environmental conditions appear to have longitudinal mental health associations. Moving to a neighborhood with less air pollution, lower population density, and reduced socioeconomic deprivation was mental health-supportively associated. However, the finding that greater social fragmentation contributes to mental health improvements requires further investigation.