Neighborhood cohesion and violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and their relationship to stress, depression, and hypertension: Findings from the Haiti cardiovascular disease cohort study

Lily D Yan, Margaret L McNairy, Jessy G Dévieux, Jean Lookens Pierre, Eliezer Dade, Rodney Sufra, Linda M Gerber, Nicholas Roberts, Stephano St Preux, Rodolphe Malebranche, Miranda Metz, Olga Tymejczyk, Denis Nash, Marie Deschamps, Monica M Safford, Jean W Pape and Vanessa Rouzier

PLOS Global Public Health, 2022, vol. 2, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: Neighborhood factors have been associated with health outcomes, but this relationship is underexplored in low-income countries like Haiti. We describe perceived neighborhood cohesion and perceived violence using the Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and the City Stress Inventory scores. We hypothesized lower cohesion and higher violence were associated with higher stress, depression, and hypertension. We collected data from a population-based cohort of adults in Port-au-Prince, Haiti between March 2019 to August 2021, including stress (Perceived Stress Scale), depression (PHQ-9), and blood pressure (BP). Hypertension was defined as systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg, diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg, or on antihypertensive medications. Covariates that were adjusted for included age, sex, body mass index, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, diet, income, and education, multivariable linear and Poisson regressions assessed the relationship between exposures and outcomes. Among 2,961 adults, 58.0% were female and median age was 40 years (IQR:28–55). Participants reported high cohesion (median 15/25, IQR:14–17) and moderate violence (9/20, IQR:7–11). Stress was moderate (8/16) and 12.6% had at least moderate depression (PHQ-9 ≥11). Median systolic BP was 118 mmHg, median diastolic BP 72 mmHg, and 29.2% had hypertension. In regressions, higher violence was associated with higher prevalence ratios of moderate-to-severe depression (Tertile3 vs Tertile1: PR 1.12, 95%CI:1.09 to 1.16) and stress (+0.3 score, 95%CI:0.01 to 0.6) but not hypertension. Cohesion was associated with lower stress (Tertile3 vs Tertile1: -0.4 score, 95%CI: -0.7 to -0.2) but not depression or hypertension. In summary, urban Haitians reported high perceived cohesion and moderate violence, with higher violence associated with higher stress and depression.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0000503 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 00503&type=printable (application/pdf)

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:plo:pgph00:0000503

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000503

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().