Nighttime lights, urban features, household poverty, depression, and obesity

Abstract

Nighttime Light Emission (NLE) is associated with diminished mental and physical health. The present study examines how NLE and associated urban features (e.g., air pollution, low green space) impact mental and physical wellbeing. We included 200,393 UK Biobank Cohort participants with complete data. The study was carried out in two steps. In Step1, we assessed the relationship between NLE, deprivation, pollution, green space, household poverty and mental and physical symptoms. In Step2, we examined the role of NLE on environment-symptom networks. We stratified participants into high and low NLE and used gaussian graphical model to identify nodes which bridged urban features and mental and physical health problems. We then compared the global strength of these networks in high vs low NLE. We found that higher NLE associated with higher air pollution, less green space, higher economic and neighborhood deprivation, higher household poverty and higher depressed mood, higher tiredness/lethargy and obesity (Rtraining_mean = 0.2624, Ptraining_mean < .001; Rtest_mean = 0.2619, Ptest_mean < .001). We also found that the interaction between environmental risk factors and mental, physical problems (overall network connectivity) was higher in the high NLE network than in the low NLE network (t = 0.7896, P < .001). In areas with high NLE, economic deprivation, household poverty and waist circumference acted as bridge factors between the key urban features and mental health symptoms. In conclusion, NLE, urban features, household poverty and mental and physical symptoms are all interrelated. In areas with high NLE, urban features associate with mental and physical health problems at a greater magnitude than in areas with low NLE.

“Urban-Satellite” estimates in the ABCD Study: Linking Neuroimaging and Mental Health to Satellite Imagery Measurements of Macro Environmental Factors

“…Similarly, in the Netherlands, NTL exposure within 100 meters of residence was related to higher depressive symptoms among individuals aged 18 to 65, even after adjusting for confounding factors like air pollution with no such relationship observed for larger 600-meter buffers around residences [81]. This was confirmed by Liao et al (2022) [3] using data extracted from United Kingdom Biobank Cohort participants to associate higher NTL with increased mental, including depressed mood, tiredness/lethargy, and physical health problems such as obesity as well as more air pollution, less green space, higher economic and neighborhood deprivation and higher household poverty. Leveraging this dataset, a further study established a connection between heightened NTL exposure and an elevated risk of substance use disorder and depression, particularly in individuals with increased iron deposition in the hippocampus and basal ganglia [48].…”

“…The assumption is that NTL emission, indicative of developed land, can infer the urban extent, economic activity across scales, and light exposure impacts on health [41,42]. DMSP/OLS NTL data has been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, including a higher risk of autism spectrum disorders [43], and increased depressive mood [3]. While a direct link to mental health may not be evident, nighttime light can serve as an important proxy for studying the potential relationships between urbanization, lower socioeconomic status [3], and factors such as disrupted sleep patterns [44] influencing mental health outcomes.…”

“…The idea of mapping diseases spatially to understand how they relate to the human and physical environment has a rich history of applications, going back to the pioneering work of John Snow, who in 1854 mapped the locations of cholera cases in London to identify its source around a pump at Broad Street [1]. Since then, many studies have highlighted the complex inter-relationships between the physical environment and public health [2,3]. Recent studies emphasize the link between environmental factors and mental disorders [4], with 12-20% of conditions like depression and anxiety attributed to environmental influences [5].…”

Medicaid expansion and health care access for individuals with obesity in the United States

“…The ACA and its provisions have the remarkable potential to provide individuals with obesity the care they need prior to developing downstream complications such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers. Although our study findings do not directly assess policies aimed at narrowing or eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in upstream obesity‐related factors, we believe that addressing healthy food availability [42, 43], neighborhood green space [44], and food security [45] is needed to improve health equity among racial/ethnic minorities at risk for or affected by obesity.…”

Subjective evaluation of home environment and levels of self‐reported depression in middle to old age: Results from the HCHS study

“…For instance, a review on intervention trials to improve sleep conducted to quantify the effect of sleep on mental health, revealed that depression symptoms were improved by optimizing sleep with moderate effect size ( g = −0.63), (Scott et al, 2021). Night‐time light pollution constitutes a serious hazard to good sleep, and has been shown among other environmental variables to characterize urban areas in which depression, obesity, or household poverty prevail to a stronger extent compared to regions with lower light pollution (Liao et al, 2022). Concerning daylight entering the home, analyzing data from the LARES study revealed that insufficient natural light exposure at one's home was related to 1.4 times higher odds for doctor‐diagnosed depression (Brown & Jacobs, 2011).…”