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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1452744
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring Mental Health in Vulnerable Populations in Developing Countries View all 36 articles

The Impact of Neighborhood Environment on the Mental Health:Evidence from China

Provisionally accepted
Kaiqi Lei Kaiqi Lei *Jianke Yang Jianke Yang Xiwang Ke Xiwang Ke
  • Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The community is a fundamental unit of an individual's life, and the community environment is a significant social component that influences an individual's mental health. In contrast to previous studies that examined the effects of socioeconomic status on health from an individualistic perspective, this research investigated the influence mechanisms and urban-rural variability between socioeconomic position and individual mental health at the levels of perception of environmental pollution and community social interaction. The study found that socioeconomic status was the most critical factor driving disparities in mental health. Environmental and community social interaction mechanisms are essential for closing the class gap. The mediating effect was highly heterogeneous between urban and rural areas, as evidenced by the perception of environmental pollution, which significantly affects rural communities. In contrast, social interactions are mainly visible in urban communities. Consequently, improving ecological governance and community social interactions is critical for reducing health disparities.

    Keywords: Socioeconomic status, Mental Health, Perception of environmental pollution, social interaction, Community, parallel mediation

    Received: 21 Jun 2024; Accepted: 19 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lei, Yang and Ke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kaiqi Lei, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

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