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Impact of Neighborhood Social Cohesion and Rodent Sightings on Mental Health among Residents of New York City During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Abstract

Common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety are prevalent globally, and rates are especially high in New York City (NYC) since the COVID-19 pandemic. Neighborhood social and physical environments have been found to influence mental health. We investigated the impact of neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood rodent sightings (as an indicator of neighborhood cleanliness) on nonspecific serious psychological distress (NSPD) status using 2020 NYC Community Health Survey data from 8781 NYC residents. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationships among social cohesion, rodent sightings, and NSPD adjusted for confounders and complex sampling and weighted to the NYC population. Effect measure modification of rodent sightings on the effect of social cohesion on NSPD was evaluated on the multiplicative scale by adding the interaction term to the multivariable model and, if significant, stratifying on the effect modifier, and on the additive scale using the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI). Social cohesion was found to decrease the odds of NSPD, and rodent sightings were found to increase the odds of NSPD. We found significant evidence of effect measure modification on the multiplicative scale. In the stratified models, there was a protective effect of social cohesion against NSPD among those not reporting rodent sightings, but no effect among those reporting rodent sightings. Our findings suggest that both neighborhood social cohesion and rodent sightings impact the mental health of New Yorkers and that rodent infestations may diminish the benefit of neighborhood social cohesion.

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Data Availability

Data supporting all results and tables are publicly available at the following link: https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/data/data-sets/community-health-survey-public-use-data.page [18].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, City University of New York, 55 West 125th Street, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Isabel Inez Curro, Chloe A. Teasdale & Elizabeth A. Kelvin

  2. CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Chloe A. Teasdale & Elizabeth A. Kelvin

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Chloe A. Teasdale

  4. Department of Occupational Health, Epidemiology & Prevention, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University/Northwell Health, Hempstead, NY, USA

    Elizabeth A. Kelvin

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  1. Isabel Inez Curro
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Correspondence to Isabel Inez Curro.

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Curro, I.I., Teasdale, C.A. & Kelvin, E.A. Impact of Neighborhood Social Cohesion and Rodent Sightings on Mental Health among Residents of New York City During the COVID-19 Pandemic. J Urban Health 101, 308–317 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-024-00847-x

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