Wu Qi, Li Chenshuang, Zhang Luxia, Zhou Ying
Center for Smart and Healthy Buildings, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
National Institute of Health Data Science, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Npj Ment Health Res. 2025 Aug 1;4(1):33. doi: 10.1038/s44184-025-00152-8.
Depression is highly clustered among people with low socioeconomic status (SES). Improved environments are known to be potentially beneficial, but the extent to which environments alleviate socioeconomic inequalities in depression remains unclear. Based on 334,536 UK Biobank participants, we quantified mediating roles of green space and air pollution in association between SES and depression, and examined interactive and joint relationships between SES and environments on depression. Co-improvements in green space and air quality significantly mediated 2.7% of this association. Interaction analysis indicated stronger environmental benefits for low-SES populations. Joint analysis revealed that low-SES adults in favorable environments had a 14.6% lower depression risk than medium-SES individuals in unfavorable conditions, with more pronounced effects among females (16.4%) and older adults (9.8%). Our findings emphasize mitigating role of upstream environmental factors involving green space and air quality in tackling socioeconomic inequalities in depression, particularly for vulnerable populations like the elderly and females.
抑郁症在社会经济地位低下的人群中高度聚集。已知改善环境可能有益，但环境在多大程度上能缓解抑郁症方面的社会经济不平等尚不清楚。基于334536名英国生物银行参与者，我们量化了绿地和空气污染在社会经济地位与抑郁症之间关联中的中介作用，并研究了社会经济地位与环境在抑郁症方面的交互和联合关系。绿地和空气质量的共同改善显著介导了这种关联的2.7%。交互分析表明，低社会经济地位人群的环境效益更强。联合分析显示，处于有利环境中的低社会经济地位成年人患抑郁症的风险比处于不利条件下的中等社会经济地位个体低14.6%，在女性（16.4%）和老年人（9.8%）中影响更为明显。我们的研究结果强调了涉及绿地和空气质量的上游环境因素在解决抑郁症方面的社会经济不平等问题中的缓解作用，特别是对于老年人和女性等弱势群体。
