Department of Conservation and Science, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, IL, USA.
Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.
J Urban Health. 2024 Apr;101(2):318-326. doi: 10.1007/s11524-024-00840-4. Epub 2024 Apr 2.
Rats are an understudied stressor for people in urban environments around the world but the effects may not be distributed equally among residents. In this study, we examined associations between residential rat sightings and mental health in Chicago, where rat complaints are the highest of any American city. We examined how this relationship varied by frequency of rat sightings, race, ethnicity, income, home ownership, and gender and explored potential psychosocial pathways (e.g., feelings about the home) between rat sightings and mental distress. We conducted a randomized household survey along an income gradient in 2021 and asked about depressive symptoms in the past week (i.e., Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale), frequency of rat sightings in/around the home, perceptions of rats, neighborhood conditions, and socio-demographic characteristics. We used logistic regression to assess relationships among these variables for our entire sample and for specific demographics using stratified models. Respondents (n = 589; 409 complete cases) who saw rats in/around the home daily/almost daily had 5.5 times higher odds of reporting high depressive symptoms relative to respondents who saw rats less frequently after accounting for socio-demographics and neighborhood conditions. This relationship was significant for men and respondents with lower incomes or race or ethnicity other than white. Our results show that rat infestations should be considered a threat to mental health among urban residents. Increased mental health support for residents living in rat-infested housing may improve public health in cities.
老鼠是全世界城市环境中研究较少的压力源，但它们的影响在居民中的分布可能并不均衡。在这项研究中，我们研究了芝加哥居民与老鼠目击事件之间的关系，芝加哥的老鼠投诉是美国所有城市中最高的。我们研究了这种关系如何因老鼠目击的频率、种族、民族、收入、住房所有权和性别而变化，并探讨了老鼠目击与精神困扰之间潜在的心理社会途径（例如，对家庭的感受）。我们沿着收入梯度在 2021 年进行了一项随机家庭调查，并询问了过去一周的抑郁症状（即流行病学研究中心抑郁量表）、家中/周围老鼠目击的频率、对老鼠的看法、邻里条件和社会人口特征。我们使用逻辑回归来评估这些变量之间的关系，包括整个样本和特定人口统计学的分层模型。受访者（n=589；409 个完整案例）中，每天/几乎每天在家中/周围看到老鼠的人报告有高抑郁症状的几率是每周看到老鼠次数较少的人的 5.5 倍，这一结果考虑了社会人口统计学和邻里条件因素后仍然显著。这一关系在男性和收入较低或非白人群体的受访者中更为显著。我们的研究结果表明，老鼠侵扰应该被视为城市居民心理健康的威胁。为居住在老鼠侵扰房屋的居民提供更多的心理健康支持，可能会改善城市的公共卫生。
