Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands.
BMJ Open. 2024 Oct 8;14(10):e083578. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-083578.
Urban youth are experiencing increasing mental health problems due to diverse personal, social and environmental concerns. Youths' detachment from natural environments, including green and blue spaces, may intensify such issues further. Contact with nature can benefit mental health and promote pro-environmental behaviour (PEB). Yet, only a few studies assess these relationships among the youth usually ignoring effects of living in diverse urban contexts, and everyday nature experiences. ECO-MIND will investigate whether urban youth's dynamic greenspace exposure and their mental models about nature connectedness explain the associations between greenspace exposure, mental health and PEB in multiple urban contexts.
We will collect data from university students from the Global South (ie, Dhaka, Kampala) and Global North cities (ie, Utrecht). Participants aged 18-24 will be recruited through stratified random sampling. We will use geographic ecological momentary assessment to assess respondents' everyday experiences and exposure to greenspaces. Our definition of greenspace exposure will be based on the availability, accessibility and visibility of greenspaces extracted from satellite and street view images. We will administer a baseline questionnaire to participants about mental health, nature connectedness and PEB characteristics. Further, we will ask participants to build mental models to show their perception of nature connectedness. Finally, we will fit partial least square structural equation models and multi-level models to our longitudinal geographic momentary assessment data.
The study was approved by the Ethical Review Board of the Utrecht University (Geo S-23221). Informed consent must be given freely, without coercion and based on a clear understanding of the participation in the study. Findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences. Furthermore, we will implement public engagement activities (eg, panel discussion) to share results among local stakeholders and policymakers and cocreate policy briefs.
由于个人、社会和环境等多方面的原因，城市青年的心理健康问题日益严重。年轻人与自然环境（包括绿色和蓝色空间）的脱节可能会进一步加剧这些问题。与自然接触有益于心理健康，并促进亲环境行为（PEB）。然而，只有少数研究评估了这些在年轻人中的关系，通常忽略了生活在不同城市环境中的影响，以及日常的自然体验。ECO-MIND 将研究城市青年的动态绿地暴露情况及其对自然联系的心理模型是否能解释在不同城市环境中，绿地暴露、心理健康和 PEB 之间的关联。
我们将从南方城市（达卡、坎帕拉）和北方城市（乌得勒支）的大学生中收集数据。将通过分层随机抽样招募 18-24 岁的参与者。我们将使用地理生态瞬间评估来评估受访者的日常体验和对绿地的暴露情况。我们对绿地暴露的定义将基于从卫星和街景图像中提取的绿地的可用性、可及性和可见性。我们将向参与者发放一份关于心理健康、自然联系和 PEB 特征的基线问卷。此外，我们将要求参与者构建心理模型来展示他们对自然联系的感知。最后，我们将对我们的纵向地理瞬间评估数据进行偏最小二乘结构方程模型和多层次模型拟合。
该研究已获得乌得勒支大学伦理审查委员会（Geo S-23221）的批准。必须在没有胁迫且基于对参与研究的清晰理解的情况下自由给予知情同意。研究结果将在同行评议的期刊和会议上发表。此外，我们将实施公众参与活动（例如，小组讨论），以便在当地利益相关者和政策制定者之间分享结果，并共同制定政策简报。
