Neighborhoods Can Affect Depression

By Abigail Mellier, | Lifestyle | 0 Comments

Where you live can certainly affect your day-to-day mood, but people living in troubled neighborhoods may be more vulnerable to bouts of depression.

Living in neighborhoods where residents feel their next-door neighbor cannot be trusted and is dangerous can create feelings of depression, researchers from Ohio State University report in the June issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior. A sense of disorder in one’s community can make people feel they have no control over their lives, and having control, researchers say, is an important attitude when it comes to curbing depression.

Poor, single-parent neighborhoods are distressing to the individuals who live there because they have high levels of disorder. In disadvantaged neighborhoods, residents are more likely to report that there are too many people hanging around the streets, using drugs and drinking; that there is a lot of crime, graffiti and vandalism; and that their neighborhood is not safe. These signs of disorder are distressing.

Researchers based these conclusions by analyzing information on approximately 2,500 Illinois residents. Women, people with low-incomes, and unemployed, younger and unmarried individuals accounted for more than half of this type of depression. People with higher incomes, andd who are employed, older or married tend to have lower rates of depression, according to the report.

The stress of living in a poor neighborhood, where many families are headed by women makes residents feel run-down, demoralized and hopeless.