بررسی رابطه قابلیت پیاده روی در محله و سلامت ذهنی (مطالعه موردی: شهر رشت) (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
محیط ساخته شده یکی از عوامل مهم تعیین کننده در میزان فعالیت جسمانی و در نتیجه سلامت فردی است. پژوهش حاضر به بررسی تأثیر محیط کالبدی شهر بر فعالیت جسمانی، انسجام اجتماعی، حس تعلق اجتماعی و سلامت ذهنی می پردازد. به این منظور با استفاده از روش نمونه گیری تصادفی دو مرحله ای، 380 پرسش نامه در محله هایی از شهر رشت تکمیل شد و داده های حاصل با استفاده از مدلسازی معادلات ساختاری در نرم افزار SMART PLS3 مورد تجزیه و تحلیل قرار گرفت. یافته های پژوهش نشان می دهد که محیط ساخته شده عامل مرتبه دومی از 5 مؤلفه ی نزدیکی به امکانات، کاهش عوامل تنش زای محیطی، کیفیت زیرساخت، دسترسی و اتصال پذیری و خطرات ترافیکی می باشد. محیط ساخته شده به طور مثبت و معناداری بر انسجام اجتماعی، حس تعلق اجتماعی و فعالیت فیزیکی تأثیر می گذارد. حس تعلق اجتماعی و فعالیت فیزیکی نیز به طور مثبت و معناداری بر سلامت ذهنی اثرگذار است. مدیریت شهری می تواند با توجه به ارتقاء مؤلفه های مذکور، قابلیت پیاده روی در محلات شهری را افزایش دهد. بهبود کیفیت محیط ساخته شده منجر به افزایش فعالیت فیزیکی، انسجام اجتماعی و حس تعلق اجتماعی خواهد شد. و در نهایت با افزایش حس تعلق اجتماعی و فعالیت فیزیکی، سلامت ذهنی شهروندان نیز ارتقاء خواهد یافت.Exploring the Relationship between Walkability of Neighborhoods and Mental Health (Case Study: Rasht City)
Introduction
Walking is very good for physical and mental health. Walking reduces obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases as well as health care/medical costs. Therefore, a wide range of favorable health outcomes (including reduced cardiovascular risk and death) are the favorable outcomes of walking. Throughout history, walking has been the main mode of transportation in urban areas. However, rapid urbanization and the mass introduction of automobiles in the 1950s, followed by suburban population growth, changed the mode of transportation. These changes created a pattern of urban expansion called sprawl, according to which many people from cities move to the suburbs of their cities. As these areas are hugely dependent on personal cars for transportation due to the mono-functionality and dispersion of daily destinations, they are designed to be low-density housing and special lifestyle. Urban built environments significantly impact on the physical activity of people and consequently their health. Considering the above-mentioned issues, this research investigated the impact of the city's physical environment on residents’ physical activity, social cohesion, sense of social belonging, and mental health.
Method
This research is descriptive-analytical. Document, library, and field methods were used for collecting the required data. The data were collected in the early 2022, using a questionnaire. A two-stage random sampling method was applied for selecting the participants. At the first stage, 20 neighborhoods were randomly selected from among the historical neighborhoods of Rasht, Iran. Walkability and density were evident the selected the neighborhoods. Then, 19 residential buildings were selected from among the neighborhood, distributed evenly, and one household in each building was randomly selected for answering the posed questions. From among the questionnaires distributed in 20 neighborhoods of Rasht, 380 questionnaires were completed. The questionnaire entailed two sections. The first section asked some demographic questions, including gender, age, education, monthly income, employment, and marital status. The second section was on the main questions, including items related to nine components. The components were: closeness to facilities, reduction of environmental stressful factors, quality of infrastructure, accessibility and connectivity, traffic hazards, physical activity, social cohesion, sense of social belonging, and mental health. To confirm the validity of the questionnaire enjoying Likert scale, experts commented on the face and content of questionnaire. Its reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha, which was 0.931. Structural equation modeling was applied in SMART PLS3 software for analyzing the collected data.
Results
The results showed that the built environment ranked the second among the components “closeness to facilities”, “reduction of stressful environmental issues”, “quality of infrastructure”, “accessibility and connectivity”, and “traffic hazard”. The built environment positively and significantly influences on the social cohesion, sense of social belonging, and physical activity. Moreover, the sense of social belonging and physical activity positively and significantly impact on mental health. The citizens believed that the more such principles as “closeness to facilities”, “accessibility and connectivity”, “safety”, “quality of urban infrastructure”, “absence of stressful environmental issues” be applied to the neighborhoods, the more the neighbors will deal with physical activities. This issue, in turn, will positively influence on citizens’ mental health. Moreover, the participants believed that if they have a more positive attitude towards their neighborhood, the sense of social belonging and social cohesion will increase. Consequently, people’s mental health will increase. This study revealed that the strategies of urban designing and proper planning policies can directly play a significant role in enhancing social cohesion, sense of social belonging, and walking behaviors and indirectly improve mental health. The way of creating a suitable pedestrian-oriented living environment is so significant not only for the urban designers and planners, but also for managers of cities. Taking the issues into account, we can conclude that the findings of this study can be applied for implementing the related issues.
Discussion and Conclusion
Reviewing previous related studies revealed that this study is among the few ones that explored within a single study the relationships between the components of the built environment, physical activity, social cohesion, sense of social belonging and mental health. Through paying more attention to the dimensions of the built environment, urban managers can enhance social cohesion, physical activity, and the sense of social belonging and, as a result, improve people’s mental and physical health. This study made some suggestions for future research, including doing a similar work in other cities or using other components in the model presented by this study.
تبلیغات
