Urbanization and Mental Health in China: Linking the 2010 Population Census with a Cross-Sectional Survey

Juan Chen, Shuo Chen and Pierre F. Landry
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Juan Chen: Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Hum, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Shuo Chen: Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Hum, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Pierre F. Landry: Global China Studies, New York University Shanghai, 1555 Century Ave, Pudong, Shanghai 200122, China

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: Along with the rapid urbanization in China, the state of mental health also receives growing attention. Empirical measures, however, have not been developed to assess the impact of urbanization on mental health and the dramatic spatial variations. Innovatively linking the 2010 Chinese Population Census with a 2011 national survey of urban residents, we first assess the impact of urbanization on depressive symptoms measured by the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) of 1288 survey respondents. We then retrieve county-level characteristics from the 2010 Chinese Population Census that match the individual characteristics in the survey, so as to create a profile of the “average person” for each of the 2869 counties or city districts, and predict a county-specific CES-D score. We use this county-specific CES-D score to compute the CES-D score for the urban population at the prefectural level, and to demonstrate the dramatic spatial variations in urbanization and mental health across China: highly populated cities along the eastern coast such as Shenyang and Shanghai show high CES-D scores, as do cities in western China with high population density and a high proportion of educated ethnic minorities.

Keywords: China; urbanization; mental health; spatial variation; survey; population census (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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