Validating community stressors using individual data on perceived stress across New York City (NYC)

Abstract

Background: Chronic psychological stress has been linked to respiratory health, both independently and in combination with air pollution. Understanding relationships between individual stress perception and community stressors (e.g., noise, violence) is important for accurate exposure assessment. Aims: We aimed to validate relationships between individual stress perception and GIS-based indicators of social stressor exposures, through a citywide survey, across two seasons. Methods: Our spatially-stratified survey captured a range of psychosocial domains, including neighborhood disorder, crime and violence, stress and mental health, individual and community-level buffering resources, and asthma outcomes. We compared survey data with GIS-based publicly-available indicators of community social stressors. Results: We identified substantial variability in perceived stress across individuals (n=780) and communities. Though most correlations were in the hypothesized direction, associations between individual and community stressors were weaker than expected. Indicators of violent crime and deprivation were correlated with perceived neighborhood crime, loitering, vermin, and vandalism (r= 0.19 to 0.25). Built environment indicators (e.g., housing violations) were inversely correlated (r= -0.06 to -0.22) with perceived cleanliness and caretaking of properties. Asthmatics with recent exacerbation events reported higher perceived stress and lower social capital, compared to asthmatics without recent events. Winter survey analysis, and comparison across seasons, is on-going. Conclusions: Relatively weak associations between community and individual-level stressor indicators may point to wide variability within communities, or in individual appraisal of community attributes. Characterizing spatial and social patterning in perceived stress, and validating the resonance of publicly-available stressor indicators, can clarify the role of chronic stress as a potential modifier of environmental exposures, and a contributing factor to environmental health disparities.