Community satisfaction, life stress, social support, and mental health in rural and urban southern black communities

This study tests for the effects of Black residents' community satisfaction/dissatisfaction, which we see as a surrogate measure of chronic community stress, on their psychological depression in rural and urban areas of Tennessee. The data utilized include responses from 398 rural West Tennessee Black participants interviewed in 1979 and 326 Black residents of Nashville, Tennessee, interviewed in 1980–82. Multiple regression analyses show, as predicted, that dissatisfaction with the community has a relatively greater influence on mental distress in the sample of rural Black residents than does our measure of transient stress (life events). In fact, unlike findings of many past studies, life events are unrelated to depression for this rural group. However, in contrast to these rural findings, life events for the urban Black residents are both significant and more important predictors of depressive symptoms than is our measure of community contentment. The effects of friendship and extended family relations on depression in both rural and urban Black samples are also assessed.