Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
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It is suggested that the nationwide social distancing due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has adverse mental health consequences despite its necessity. We investigated the associations of social distancing measures with mental health problems. Using national representative sample of 509,062 adults in the USA, we examined the associations of small business closure and reduced urban mobility with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depression disorder (MDD). ⋯ Living in state with the highest quartile of small business closures was associated with increased prevalence of GAD (OR: 1.06; CI: 1.03-1.11) compared to lowest quartile, but had no association with MDD. Living in the highest quartile of urban mobility was associated with lower prevalence of both GAD (OR: 0.88; CI: 0.85-0.93) and MDD (OR: 0.90; CI: 0.86-0.95) relative to the lowest quartile. Our findings suggest that small business closures and reduced mobility during COVID-19 pandemic were negatively associated with the two mental health outcomes in the USA, despite their important roles in preventing the infection.
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Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a public health issue plaguing families and communities in the USA. Despite considerable research devoted to individual-level factors affecting IPV and a smaller body of ecological IPV research, few studies explore the interaction between individual-level protective factors and neighborhood- or community-level factors in predicting the incidents of IPV among women. Moreover, most IPV studies utilize a unidimensional approach for social capital, despite strong empirical and theoretical support for a multi-dimensional conceptualization. ⋯ Concentrated disadvantage and higher scores on the social capital index independently predicted a lower probability of victimization. Moderating effects were found for social capital: the protective effects of social capital on the probability of IPV were attenuated for those reporting community violence compared with women who did not report it. These findings enhance the field's understanding of the synergistic relationship between individual- and neighborhood-level factors, providing important implications for community-based IPV interventions.