Abstract
BackgroundThis study was conducted in rapidly urbanizing Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to examine patterns of perceived neighborhood quality by residents and the associations between these patterns and self-reported general and mental health in middle-aged women.MethodsA questionnaire survey was administered to 960 women aged 40–60 years. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics, subjects’ perception of their neighborhood environment, general health status, and mental health as measured using a 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12) were reported.ResultsA total of 830 women completed the questionnaire. Subjects reporting their general health as very good or good accounted for 80.3% and those with a GHQ12 ≥16, which reflects psychological distress or severe distress, accounted for 16.1%. A principal component analysis of the perceptions of neighborhood environment by the residents identified six qualities: physical environment, designed environment, neighborhood community, public safety, natural environment, and citizen services. The perception of better-quality citizen services in the neighborhood was associated with better self-reported general health (odds ratio [OR] = 1.330, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.093–1.618), and the perception of better-quality public safety was associated with less psychological distress (OR = 0.718, 95% CI 0.589–0.876); these associations were independent of education, income, occupation, type of residential area, and number of years living in the current khoroo.ConclusionsThe perception of the quality of a neighborhood environment can affect the self-reported general and mental health of residents, even after accounting for the type of residential area and individual socio-economic status. Developing high-quality neighborhoods is an essential component of good planning to promote population health in urban environments.
Highlights
This study was conducted in rapidly urbanizing Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to examine patterns of perceived neighborhood quality by residents and the associations between these patterns and self-reported general and mental health in middle-aged women
The following reasons were determined for the 130 subjects who did not complete the survey: severe illness and/or disabilities (n = 5), inability to devote sufficient time to the interview and examination (n = 16), cultural taboos against physical contact by researchers with the head and shoulders of the subjects during the taking of anthropometric measurements (n = 20), concerns about leakage of personal information gathered during the interview and anthropometric measurements (n = 29), unspecified reasons (n = 28), the subject could not be located at the stated residential address (n = 14), and other reasons (n = 18)
Odds ratios were adjusted for education, income, occupation, type of residential area, and number of years living in the current khoroo were calculated separately for each neighborhood environment quality PE quality of physical environment, DE quality of designed environment, NC quality of neighborhood community, PS quality of public safety, NE quality of natural environment, CS quality of citizen services, B standardized coefficient, SE standard error, OR odds ratio, Confidence interval (CI) confidential interval ***P < 0.001 that the perceived quality of the neighborhood community (NC) and the perceived quality of public safety (PS) in the neighborhood were less likely to be associated with “psychological distress or severe distress,” independent of education, income, occupation, type of residential areas, and living year in the current khoroo
Summary
This study was conducted in rapidly urbanizing Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to examine patterns of perceived neighborhood quality by residents and the associations between these patterns and self-reported general and mental health in middle-aged women. The city presently faces several economic challenges: because of the country’s dependence on its mining industry, fluctuations in world prices for commodities are destabilizing the economy; the government maintains increasingly expansionary fiscal policies, and a high inflation rate (averaging 11.2% from 2007 to 2015) has been reported [1]. Because of this level of population and economic growth and the accompanying challenges, urban planning is a priority to ensure the delivery of affordable, quality housing and favorable living environments. Only 0.3% of the households in Ulaanbaatar were living in houses in the new town areas in 2010, the Master Plan Agency of Ulaanbaatar forecasts that this percentage will increase to 16.7% by the year 2030 [3]
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