Exploring Pathways Linking Ecological Space To Mental Health In Urban Residential Areas

Ecological space construction is a major challenge for sustainable development in rapidly urbanized areas.Although urban planners,policy makers and residents have realized that urban ecological space can promote mental health,its mechanism and pathways are still lack of comprehensive exploration,which leads to the lack of targeted guidance for them.For example,the objective indicators of eco-space were oversimplified,the relationship between subjective and objective indicators,the potential pathways and the overlapping relationship between mediators have not been fully explored.In particular,well-being of residents in high-density cities is closely related to residential eco-space.With the proposal of"Park City","Livable city"and"Healthy city",the eco-space of urban residential area urgently needs to be constructed and optimized.Taking Shanghai as an representative city,this study used land use data to obtain three objective attributes of 102 residential eco-spaces:percentage of eco-space area(PLAND_t),landscape diversity(SHDI)and number of landscape types(PR).The personal attributes of 1005 residents,their perception and use of eco-space,as well as the mediating benefits reported by residents,were obtained by household survey.The Warwick-Edinburgh Positive Mental Well-being Scale(WEMWBS)was used to evaluate the mental health outcomes of residents.The multi-level regression,simple mediation and serial mediation model were used to study the mechanism of eco-space on residents’mental health,aiming at providing theoretical guidance and decision-making basis for health-oriented eco-space construction and planning.The results show that:(1)The mental health is affected by variables at individual level and residential level in Shanghai.At the individual level,mental health is significantly positively correlated with income,education level and general health.Residents with Body Mass Index(BMI)in the overweight and obese ranges have significantly lower levels of mental health than those with normal BMI.The mental health scores of retired people are lower than those of people working full time,while the mental health of students and military people are better.At the residential level,the PLAND_t of eco-space has been widely recognized to significantly improve the mental health of residents.Besides,this study also found that the average mental health of residents was significantly positively correlated with PR and SHDI,and SHDI has the highest regression coefficient of 9.371,indicating that the area of eco-space is not the only objective attribute affecting the mental health.(2)There is a significant weak correlation between subjective and objective indicators of residential eco-space,and the correlation coefficient between different subjective and objective indicators ranges from 0.090 to 0.220.Different indicators have different pathways on mental health,indicating that subjective and objective indicators respectively described different realistic characteristics of residential eco-space,and studies that combine objective attributes and subjective measures can explain the heterogeneity of current studies on influencing mechanisms.In terms of objective attributes of eco-space,SHDI and PLAND_t can improve residents’mental health by promoting walking(the pathway coefficients are 0.818 and 0.784)and relaxation(the pathway coefficients are 0.687 and 1.153),while PR can improve residents’mental health by promoting residents’natural relatedness(the pathway coefficient is 0.451)and relaxation(the pathway coefficient is 0.237).The multi-level simple mediation model results of subjective measures show that increasing the use frequency can promote walking behavior(the pathway coefficient at individual level is 0.567),and the use of eco-space can also improve mental health outcomes by reducing stress(the pathway coefficient at residential area level is 0.140).Besides,perceived eco-space promote mental health by promoting social interaction,natural relatedness,and stress reduction(the pathway coefficients at residential area level are 0.605,0.792 and 0.692).Compared with other measures,perceived eco-space is more closely related to various mediating benefits,and only promoting walking behavior pathway has not been verified.(3)Residents’subjective measurements are influenced by the objective attributes of eco-space.SHDI helps to enhance residents’perception of residential eco-space(the pathway coefficient is0.904),and improving SHDI and PLAND of residential eco-space can increase residents’use frequency of eco-space(the pathway coefficients are 1.504 and 1.304).PR could not directly promote the use frequency,which might be because the frequency is mainly related to the size of activity space.Only SHDI can significantly promote perceived eco-space,which indicates that it is necessary to rationally match the types and distribution of eco-space to ensure that various eco-space can serve the heterogeneous needs of residents.(4)Two positive behaviors,walking behavior and social behavior,have different causal relationships with eco-space stress reduction.Walking can improve residents’mood and promote their relaxation and stress reduction(the pathway coefficient is 0.232)without increasing mental and physical fatigue.Stress reduction benefit is the antecedent of social interaction(the pathway coefficients are 0.799,0.808 and 0.836).Combined with the attention recovery theory and stress reduction theory,whether residents’positive behaviors require directed attention may affect the efficiency of residential eco-space in promoting mental health.The stress reduction function of residential eco-space is a key pathway to promote mental health.