Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Am J Community Psychol. 2018 Jun;61(3-4):332-343. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12240. Epub 2018 Mar 25.
Interventions aimed at enhancing mental health are increasingly centered around promoting community attachment and support. However, few have examined and tested the specific ecological factors that give rise to these key community processes. Drawing from insights from the ecological network perspective, we tested whether spatial and social overlap in routine activity settings (e.g., work, school, childcare) with fellow ethnic community members is associated with individuals' attachment to their ethnic communities and access to social resources embedded in their communities. Data on routine activity locations drawn from the Refugee Well-Being Project (based in a city in the Southwestern United States) were used to reconstruct the ecological networks of recently resettled refugee communities, which were two-mode networks that comprise individuals and their routine activity locations. Results indicated that respondents' community attachment and support increased with their ecological network extensity-which taps the extent to which respondents share routine activity locations with other community members. Our study highlights a key ecological process that potentially enhances individuals' ethnic community attachment that extends beyond residential neighborhoods.
旨在增强心理健康的干预措施越来越以促进社区联系和支持为中心。然而，很少有人研究和测试产生这些关键社区过程的具体生态因素。本研究从生态网络视角的见解出发，检验了与同种族社区成员在日常活动场所（例如，工作、学校、儿童保育）中的空间和社会重叠是否与个体对其种族社区的依恋以及获得其社区中嵌入的社会资源有关。从难民福祉项目（位于美国西南部的一个城市）中获取的日常活动地点的数据被用来重建最近重新安置的难民社区的生态网络，这是一种包含个体及其日常活动地点的双模网络。研究结果表明，受访者的社区依恋和支持随着其生态网络密度的增加而增加，生态网络密度反映了受访者与其他社区成员共享日常活动地点的程度。本研究强调了一个潜在的关键生态过程，该过程可以增强个体对其族裔社区的依恋，这种影响超出了居住社区的范围。
