Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Am J Community Psychol. 2018 Jun;61(3-4):285-295. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12232. Epub 2018 Mar 7.
This study explores the relationship between mental health and place at microgeographic units of analysis. We examine self-reported symptomology for depression and PTSD for 2,724 survey respondents interviewed in three types of randomly selected street segments: violent crime hot spots, cool spots, and cold spots. We find that the mean symptomology score is 61% higher for depression in violent crime hot spots than cold spots, and 85% higher for PTSD. Overall, we estimate that 14.8% of residents of violent crime hot spots meet thresholds for moderate depression or a diagnosis of PTSD. This can be compared to only 6.5% of residents at the cold spots. Using PSM and weighted negative binomial regression approaches we show that observable selection factors are not responsible for the relationships identified. Examining geographic influences, we find an important area effect of violent crime for both mental health measures, and an additional impact of the specific street of residence for PTSD.
本研究探讨了心理健康与微观地理分析单位之间的关系。我们研究了在三种随机选择的街道地段（暴力犯罪热点、酷点和冷点）中接受采访的 2724 名调查对象的抑郁和 PTSD 自报告症状。我们发现，暴力犯罪热点地区的抑郁症状平均得分比冷点地区高 61%，而 PTSD 症状得分则高 85%。总的来说，我们估计，暴力犯罪热点地区有 14.8%的居民符合中度抑郁或 PTSD 诊断的标准。相比之下，冷点地区只有 6.5%的居民符合这一标准。我们使用倾向评分匹配和加权负二项回归方法表明，可观察到的选择因素并不是造成这些关系的原因。在考察地理因素的影响时，我们发现暴力犯罪对这两种心理健康指标都有重要的区域影响，对 PTSD 还有居住地特定街道的额外影响。
