Wellbeing Space and Society最新文献

Natural disasters have significant psychological impacts, yet people's connection to disaster-affected places remains underexplored. Studies using place attachment models to understand psychological disaster impact have yielded inconsistent findings. This study developed Identity Process Theory (IPT) to better explain post-disaster wellbeing and mental health outcomes. Social connection (social capital) was predicted to buffer negative psychological disaster impacts for highly place-connected people. We also developed a novel scale to address a major gap in existing IPT literature: measurement of identity threat. A survey was administered to people from small townships (N = 111) affected by a major bushfire in NSW, Australia, in 2019 and 2020. Identity threat accounted for wellbeing and mental health outcomes better than did place attachment. Stronger identity threat was associated with poorer outcomes. Partial support was found for the moderating function of social capital. These findings support the importance of connection to place and IPT's utility in disaster contexts. This has important implications for environmental psychologists and disaster recovery efforts.

Having a sense of connection with people and belonging to place are important for mental wellbeing. These dimensions of connectedness are often studied separately, using different theoretical frameworks, such as social capital and topophilia. Based on a mapping review of the literature, this paper aims to examine the available evidence on how mental health and wellbeing has been influenced by people's experiences of different dimensions of connectedness in the population of the Scottish islands. The findings show the importance of people having a sense of connection not only to communities present and past, but also to the land, and to the natural environment. They also show how experiences of these different facets of connectedness vary between social groups and shift over time, and how they are sustained through social practices in different places and spaces of interaction on the islands. Reflecting on these findings, the paper considers the strengths and limits of existing approaches. It suggests that there may be a value in using more integrated and context-sensitive approaches in future, to better understand the intersections between different dimensions of connectedness and how they contribute to overall mental wellbeing in given populations and places.

While there is evidence from the general population that experiences in public spaces can affect health and wellbeing, there is relatively limited research exploring this relationship for young people from refugee backgrounds, who are at higher risk of poor health. This paper draws on interviews, mapping and photovoice with 10 young people from refugee backgrounds and interviews with 16 service providers working with refugee youth, recruited through a survey and community and service networks. All interviews were analysed thematically, with photographs and maps also included in the analysis of interviews with young people. A typology of health-related experiences in public spaces was identified - including socialising and connection, a sense of welcome, a sense of safety, and relaxation and restoration. Each of these aspects of public space experiences could be health promoting. However, cutting across this typology was a theme of racism and discrimination, which affected health and wellbeing directly and indirectly through limiting young people's public space landscape.

Rapid population aging in the United States and South Korea has implications for intergenerational relationships and support between adult children and older parents. However, given the two countries’ different cultural and social norms and economic development, older adults’ perceptions and experiences of intergenerational support may differ. This study utilizes data from the 2018 wave of the Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study and the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing to examine the relationship between intergenerational support from children to parents and the subjective well-being of older American and Korean parents. Employing the Probit model, our findings reveal significant and positive associations between receiving emotional support from adult children and the well-being of older parents in both countries. However, receiving financial transfers from adult children is negatively associated with the subjective well-being of older American parents, while this association is positive but not statistically significant among older Korean parents. Furthermore, we explored specific subgroups and found that child-to-parent emotional contact significantly contributes to the subjective well-being of fathers, individuals not living with their children, and parents in higher income percentiles. In contrast, receiving financial transfers from adult children plays a significantly positive role in the well-being of older Korean mothers and parents in lower income percentiles. These results highlight the importance of developing interventions tailored to specific countries and groups and effectively addressing the unique needs and challenges older adults face in diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts.

Transformative social protection requires an understanding of how interventions affect women and men. Gender inequality remains pervasive in societies. However, mainstream social protection evaluations have seldom been informed by gender analysis beyond sex categorisation. This paper focuses on the Labour Intensive Public Works Programme in Wa West District of Ghana to discuss the gender dynamics in participation outcomes. We analysed data from ten in-depth interviews with district assembly's social welfare and LIPW project staff and eight focus group discussions with programme participants and nonparticipants. In-depth interviews with the key informant clearly show that though the programme implementers acknowledge differential labour demands among participants, it is carried out in a manner that sustains gender inequalities through the endorsement of social stereotypes. The analysis revealed that an increase in women's income did not augment their ability to bargain in household decision-making. The study draws on Longwe's Women Empowerment Framework to discuss the results. This paper explains why and how this new knowledge can be used to inform theoretical and future policy debates on social protection.

In this paper, we describe ways that older adults in the context of an online music and movement program used music, movement, and the Zoom platform to create places that fostered positive wellbeing during the period of lockdown in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they continue to do so afterwards. Establishing and supporting place-making was particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, given that place was restricted and reconfigured for most people. The virtual musicking environment, though initially considered limiting by many, is noteworthy in its ability to powerfully support relational wellbeing. This is particularly significant for older adults who seek opportunities to develop and assert autonomy over decisions and surroundings (White, 2017), foster empowerment (Francescato, 2017), retain confidence and comfort with expanding their community footprint (Biglieri & Dean, 2022), and engage with the world on one's own terms (Creaney et al., 2021). Though virtual musicking certainly reconfigures place differently from in-person music-making, this research reveals that the virtual musicking environment offers a promising opportunity for a rather unique form of place-making, and as such, deserves further examination. In the context of the growing preference for aging-in-place by older adults, the online space allows for the creative and accessible expansion of one's engagement with the community from home in ways that support wellbeing uniquely.

There has been a growing interest in policies that encourage local living by promoting accessible and walkable communities, such as the 20-minute neighborhood concept. Despite the widespread adoption of this policy worldwide, little research has been conducted on the characteristics of children's 20-minute neighborhoods and their association with time spent locally.

This study aimed to explore the features of Scottish children's 20-minute neighborhoods by analysing an 800 m road and path network buffer surrounding 687 children's homes. Based on existing literature, the study identified key features associated with children's time spent locally and the 20-minute neighborhood policy. The study then examined variations in these features by socioeconomic status, urbanicity, and gender.

The findings revealed significant inequalities in the presence of health-benefiting (e.g., green spaces, recreational facilities, healthy food outlets) and health-harming (e.g., major roads, unhealthy commodity retailers) environments within children's 20-minute neighborhoods. Children from more deprived areas had access to more of both types of environments. The study also found that having a school within a 20-minute neighborhood was associated with an increased amount of time spent locally (IRR 1.62, 95% CI 1.5 to 1.8, p<0.001).

The study suggests that the 20-minute neighborhood policy should extend beyond mere access to local amenities and prioritise creating healthy 20-minute neighborhoods, particularly in socioeconomically deprived areas. The research highlights the importance of promoting equal access to quality local environments, which can contribute to improved health and well-being outcomes for children.

In the western world, the ageing population is becoming more ethnically diverse. Research has shown the importance of physical and social neighbourhood resources for the well-being realisation of older adults. However, the relative importance of neighbourhood resources for the well-being realisation of older Surinamese adults remains unknown. We conducted a Q-methodology study in April–July 2022 to capture the variety of viewpoints of older adults (age ≥ 65 years) with Surinamese backgrounds in the Netherlands on neighbourhood age-friendliness and well-being realisation. A purposive sample of 33 participants ranked 38 neighbourhood-related opinion statements according to their importance for their well-being and explained their rankings during follow-up interviews. By-person factor analysis of the data was conducted to identify common patterns in the statement rankings. Three distinct viewpoints in which various aspects were considered to be important were extracted: 1) a safe neighbourhood in which to stay socially active, 2) a supportive neighbourhood in which to stay independent and 3) a well-maintained neighbourhood with involved residents. These results suggest that not all older Surinamese adults in the Netherlands find the same neighbourhood resources to be important for the realisation of well-being.

Purpose

Rates of obesity are significantly higher for those living in a rural versus urban setting. High levels of stress and low levels of subjective well-being (SWB) have been linked to poor weight-related behaviors and outcomes, but it is unclear if these relationships differ as a function of rurality. This study investigated the extent to which living in a rural versus urban county ("rurality") moderated associations between stress / subjective wellbeing (predictors) and diet quality, dietary intake of added sugars, physical activity, and BMI (outcomes).

Methods

Participants were recruited from urban (n = 355) and rural (n = 347) counties in Washington State and self-reported psychological, demographic, and food frequency questionnaires while physical activity behavior was measured objectively.

Findings

After controlling for relevant covariates, levels of stress were positively associated with added sugar intake for those living in the urban county while this relationship was non-significant for those residing in the rural county. Similarly, SWB was negatively associated with added sugar intake, but only for urban residents. County of residence was also found to moderate the relationship between SWB and BMI. Higher SWB was inversely associated with BMI for those living in the urban county while no relationship was observed for rural county residents.

Conclusions

These findings support the hypothesis that the relationships between stress / SWB and weight function differentially based on the rurality of the residing county. This work adds to the growing body of literature highlighting the role stress and SWB play in the rural obesity disparity.

Migrants commonly maintain transnational ties with their home country including identities, attachments, and social, cultural, economic and service/care interactions. Significant gaps remain regarding care-providers’ perspectives on migrants’ transnational ties and whether and how these ties are addressed in the context of care. La Maison Bleue (LMB) is a community-based social perinatal care service with four sites in Montreal, Canada, providing health and social care to families in vulnerable contexts from pregnancy up until age five. We conducted a small, qualitative descriptive study and interviewed 7 care-providers (nursing, social work, family medicine, psycho-education) and 3 administrators/support personnel from LMB to gather data on their experiences and perspectives on “transnationalism” in care with vulnerable-status migrant women and their families. Transnational identity (language, culture, attachment to the home country), and ongoing connections with back home, including communication with children and extended family, remittent sending, and the receipt of child-rearing and health advice, commonly arise within care interactions. Fostering transnational relationships and cultural identity are strategies used by LMB care-providers to strengthen migrant families’ sense of belonging and to help them cope with losses, while addressing transnational tensions and stresses are used to promote families’ well-being and integration. This involves a combination of listening, humility, remaining open, providing information and delivering care that is respectful of culture and sensitive to families’ situations. Cultural negotiation, directly with migrant families or via local peers, is sometimes used to overcome transnational cultural barriers related to health decisions and child-rearing. At times, care-providers also engage directly with family back home to mediate cross-border stresses and cultural tensions and/or to draw on them as a source of information and support. Care-providers view transnational cultural ties and relationships as both positive and negative for the well-being of families and with respect to its impact on interventions with families. Although not always feasible, care-providers believe it's important to know about families’ transnational contexts, in order to provide responsive, supportive care.