Mind & behavior · 2020
How were neighborhood ties linked to changes in depressive symptoms among older disaster survivors in Japan?
Having neighborhood ties after the disaster was linked to a smaller increase in depressive symptom scores. Among survivors aged 65 or older in Iwanuma, Japan, those with post-disaster ties fared better on this measure than those without ties both before and after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The study followed participants to 2.5 years after the disaster, but it cannot establish that neighborhood ties caused the difference.
Details
Researchers used questionnaires completed before the disaster and 2.5 years afterward, allowing them to examine changes rather than relying only on post-disaster reports. The analysis included 3,111 older adults. Participants reported their interactions with neighbors and completed a scale measuring depressive symptoms.
After accounting for possible factors that could influence the comparison, having neighborhood ties after the disaster was associated with a smaller increase in symptom scores than having no ties at either survey. The abstract does not separate newly formed ties from ties maintained through the disaster in this main comparison.
The patterns were not simply that everyone without ties got worse: average scores stayed nearly unchanged among people without ties at either survey. In contrast, average scores rose among those who had ties before the disaster but lost them afterward. These are symptom scores, not counts of diagnosed depression. The observational findings support a link between neighborhood connections and mental health during recovery, rather than proving that building ties prevents depression.
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