A Systematic Review on the Effect of The Physical Environment on Mental Health

P-787 Abstract: There is an emerging body of evidence that the physical environment can affect mental health. This systematic review, which was funded by the Mental Health Foundation in the UK, assessed the strength of the evidence of the impact of the physical environment on mental health. The systematic review identified studies published in English, in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2005, which examined the effect of the physical environment on the incidence or prevalence of psychological morbidity. The physical environment was defined as residential, neighbourhood or natural environments; mental health outcomes ranged from general psychological symptoms to specific psychiatric diagnoses. Papers were identified using Medline, Embase, Psychinfo, Web of Science, BIDS, Geobase and ICONDA databases. 99 papers were identified which assessed the effect of the physical environment on mental health: 94 were primary research papers and 5 were reviews. The majority of the papers were of cross-sectional design and studied European and North American populations. The papers covered several research domains including access to green spaces, exposure to street violence, housing and neighbourhood quality and regeneration, housing tenure, neighbourhood disorder, chronic noise exposure, spatial and population density, and urbanicity. The strength of the evidence for environmental effects on mental health was strongest for an effect of urbanicity on mental health. There was also compelling evidence for an effect of the neighbourhood on mental health; evidence for an effect of housing on mental health was weaker, largely due to a lack of robust research in this area. There was cross-sectional evidence for an association between chronic noise exposure and poorer mental health, but longitudinal evidence was lacking. The strength of the evidence for the effects of the physical environment on mental health varied. There was a lack of robust, longitudinal research in some areas and some aspects of the environment have been very little studied to date. The lack of evidence for environmental effects in some areas does not necessarily mean that there are no effects: rather that the effects have not yet been studied.