Environmental Stressors and Mental Health in Remote Resource Boom Communities

Abstract

This article explores the impact of environmental stressors on the psychological health of residents of remote resource boom communities, using Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) as a measure of impairment. Analysis of survey data collected for over 1000 men and women in 13 such towns around Australia suggests that residents' perception of their environ ment as stressful in fact had little significant influence on whether or not they were classified in terms of GHQ criteria as probable psychiatric cases. Results showed, moreover, that despite differences between towns in terms of isolation, size, remoteness and harshness of the environment, there was no sig nificant difference in the GHQ scores of men or women across towns varying according to these criteria. Most of the small amount of variance in scores that could be explained was accounted for by loneliness, which had both a direct and a con ditioning effect. Research elsewhere, however, suggests that this may be an individual trait, rather than a function of the social environment of the resource boom towns themselves.