Stress and Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Neighborhood Context

Michelle C. Kondo, Erica Felker-Kantor, Kimberly Wu, Jeanette Gustat, Christopher N. Morrison, Lisa Richardson, Charles C. Branas and Katherine P. Theall
Additional contact information
Michelle C. Kondo: Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, 100 N. 20th St, Suite 205, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA
Erica Felker-Kantor: Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Kimberly Wu: Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Jeanette Gustat: Department of Epidemiology, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Christopher N. Morrison: Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
Lisa Richardson: Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies, Research and Technology Foundation, Inc., 2021 Lakeshore Drive, Suite 220, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Charles C. Branas: Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
Katherine P. Theall: Department of Epidemiology, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: Neighborhoods play a central role in health and mental health, particularly during disasters and crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined changes in psychological distress following the pandemic, and the potential role of neighborhood conditions among 244 residents of New Orleans, Louisiana. Using modified linear regression models, we assessed associations between neighborhood characteristics and change in psychological distress from before to during the pandemic, testing effect modification by sex and social support. While higher density of offsite alcohol outlets (β = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.52, 1.23), assault rate (β = 0.14; 95% CI: 0.03, 0.24), and walkable streets (β = 0.05; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.07) in neighborhoods were associated with an increase in distress, access to neighborhood parks (β = −0.03; 95% CI: −0.05, −0.01), collective efficacy (β = −0.23; 95% CI: −0.35, −0.09), and homicide rate (β = −1.2; 95% CI: −1.8, −0.6) were associated with reduced distress related to the pandemic. These relationships were modified by sex and social support. Findings revealed the important but complicated relationship between psychological distress and neighborhood characteristics. While a deeper understanding of the neighborhoods’ role in distress is needed, interventions that target neighborhood environments to ameliorate or prevent the residents’ distress may be important not only during crisis situations.

Keywords: psychological distress; neighborhood characteristics; parks; greenspace; crime; walkability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2779/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2779/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:5:p:2779-:d:760245

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().