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PubMed2002

Mental health and the built environment: cross-sectional survey of individual and contextual risk factors for depression.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the effects of the physical environment on individual health. AIMS: The present study tested the hypothesis that the prevalence of depression is associated with independently rated measures of the built environment, after adjusting for individuals' socio-economic status and the internal characteristics of their dwellings. METHOD: Cross-sectional survey of 1887 individuals aged 16 years and over in two electoral wards in north London. Depression was ascertained using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D). The built environment was rated independently, using a validated measure. RESULTS: After adjusting for socio-economic status, floor of residence and structural housing problems, statistically significant associations were found between the prevalence of depression and living in housing areas characterised by properties with predominantly deck access (odds ratio=1.28, 95% CI 1.03-1.58; P=0.02) and of recent (post-1969) construction (odds ratio=1.43, 95% CI 1.06-1.91; P=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of depression was associated with independently rated features of the built environment, independent of individuals' socio-economic status and internal characteristics of dwellings.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2026

Influence of built environment on occupational health of women workers in tea plantations of India: a systematic review.

The built environment, comprising homes, buildings, roads, public spaces, infrastructure, land use, civic design, and amenities, has a considerable influence on occupational health. In India's tea plantations, where women comprise majority of the workforce, the built environment plays a crucial role in determining occupational health. The aforementioned point can be explained by the co-occurrence of living and working conditions, which often coexist in tea plantations, further resulting in vulnerabilities to the health of women workers. Therefore, to understand the influence of built environment on the occupational health of women workers in tea plantations of India, the present paper employs a systematic review using the PRISMA 2020 framework. In the first search, 421 studies were identified, of which 21 studies met all the inclusion criteria. A quality appraisal and risk of bias of the included studies have been undertaken. The results identified that musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are the most prevalent occupational health consequence, affecting over 80 % of the women workers in Indian tea plantations, substantiated by a range of estimates in the studies reviewed. Gendered disparities in wage earning, self-autonomy, and dual responsibilities often lead to emotional distress, as delineated in minimal of the reviewed studies, grounded on self-disclosed or qualitative analysis. Further, deprived housing conditions and other facilities across the reviewed studies reflect institutional negligence. Therefore, by conducting a systematic synthesis of occupational health of women workers in the Indian tea plantation sector through the lens of the built environment, prior accounts have been extended. Addressing these issues is essential for safeguarding women workers, which will ensure the longevity of the Indian tea industry.

Female↗

PubMed2003

Indoor environments and health: moving into the 21st century.

The quality of our indoor environments affects well-being and productivity, and risks for diverse diseases are increased by indoor air pollutants, surface contamination with toxins and microbes, and contact among people at home, at work, in transportation, and in many other public and private places. We offer an overview of nearly a century of research directed at understanding indoor environments and health, consider current research needs, and set out policy matters that need to be addressed if we are to have the healthiest possible built environments. The policy context for built environments extends beyond health considerations to include energy use for air-conditioning, selection of materials for sustainability, and design for safety, security, and productivity.

Air Pollution, Indoor↗

PubMed1986

Growth reponses of eggplant and soybean seedlings to mechanical stress in greenhouse and outdoor environments.

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L. var. esculentum 'Burpee's Black Beauty') and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. 'Wells II'] seedlings were assigned to a greenhouse or a windless or windy outdoor environment. Plants within each environment received either periodic seismic (shaking) or thigmic (flexing or rubbing) treatment, or were left undisturbed. Productivity (dry weight) and dimensional (leaf area and stem length) growth parameters generally were reduced more by mechanical stress in the greenhouse (soybean) or outdoor-windless environment (eggplant) than in the outdoor windy environment. Outdoor exposure enhanced both stem and leaf specific weights, whereas mechanical stress enhanced only leaf specific weight. Although both forms of controlled mechanical stress tended to reduce node and internode diameters of soybean, outdoor exposure increased stem diameter.

Environment↗

PubMed1988

The clinical assessment of a child's social and physical environment during health visits.

The quality of a child's home environment plays a critical role in long-term developmental status. The Pediatric Review and Observation of Children's Environmental Support and Stimulation (PROCESS) Inventory was developed to clinically assess aspects of the child's physical environment and the parent-child interaction during a health supervision visit. The final version was used with 76 mother-child pairs by two pediatricians. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory was performed within 3 weeks on all pairs, and a laboratory observation of parent-child interaction was completed with 30 of the pairs. Correlations of the PROCESS with the HOME Inventory and parent-child interaction were 0.84 and 0.86 (less than 0.001), respectively. These significant correlations persisted while controlling for family income and education. When high and low scores of the HOME Inventory known to correlate with positive and negative developmental outcomes were cross-tabulated with PROCESS scores, low scores on the PROCESS identified 77% of low HOME Inventory scores and high scores on the PROCESS identified 95% of the high HOME Inventory scores. The PROCESS provides pediatricians a brief, easy-to-score, clinically useful, reliable, and valid method to measure children's home environments.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1987

Infant temperament and the quality of the childrearing environment.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between infant temperament and the quality of the childrearing environment by examining (a) maternal ratings of infant's behavior utilizing questionnaire category scores, (b) maternal impressions of infant's behavior, (c) the relationship of maternal ratings of infant's behavior to the quality of the childrearing environment, and (d) the relationship of maternal impressions of infant's behavior to the quality of the childrearing environment. Mothers of 20 normal, full-term infants with a mean age of 5.2 months were involved in the study. During a home visit, the Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire (RITQ) and the Home Observational Measurement Evaluation Inventory (HOME) were completed. Pearson Product Moment Correlation, chi-square, and Z tests were used to analyze the data. The findings of the study suggested no significant difference in the quality of the childrearing environment with difficult or easy temperament infants as measured by the questionnaire category scores. There was a significant positive relationship between infants perceived as "easier-than-average" on the maternal impression responses and maternal organization and stimulation as measured by the HOME.

Environment↗

PubMed2006

Nutrition and exercise environment available to outpatients, visitors, and staff in Children's hospitals in Canada and the United States.

BACKGROUND: Children's hospitals should advocate for children's health by modeling optimum health environments. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether children's hospitals provide optimum health environments and to identify associated factors. DESIGN: Telephone survey. SETTING: Canadian and US hospitals with accredited pediatric residency programs. PARTICIPANTS: Food services directors or administrative dietitians. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Health environment grades as determined for 4 domains quantifying (1) the amount of less nutritious food sold at cafeterias (cafeteria grade), (2) the presence of fast food outlets (outlet grade), (3) the amount of nutritious food alternatives available (healthful alternative grade), and (4) the presence of patient obesity or employee exercise programs (program grade). RESULTS: The overall response rate was 87%. Compared with Canadian hospitals, US hospitals had more food outlets (89% vs 50%) and more snack/beverage vending machines (median, 16 vs 12) (P = .001 for both), despite equivalent consumer numbers. External companies managed more outlets at US vs Canadian hospitals (65% vs 14%; P = .01), and, generally, US hospitals recuperated more revenue from their outlets. Worst cafeteria grade was associated with US hospital location (odds ratio [OR], 8.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.6-50; P = .01) and lower healthful alternative grade (OR, 0.016; 95% CI, 0.002-0.15; P<.001). Lower grade in any domain was related to whether hospitals received more revenue from noncafeteria food outlets (OR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.06-2.72; P = .03) and the presence of more internally operated cafeterias (OR, 2.3 per cafeteria; 95% CI, 1.53-3.36; P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Children's hospitals provide suboptimal health environments. Reliance on revenue may be an important motivating factor encouraging the adoption of outlets that serve less nutritious food.

Canada↗

PubMed2000

Alexithymia and childhood family environment.

Little research has been conducted on the contribution of environmental factors to the development of alexithymic tendencies. Ninety-two university students were surveyed to determine if features of the childhood family environment could predict the level of alexithymic tendencies. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to measure alexithymic tendencies. Also surveyed retrospectively were dimensions of the childhood family environment such as the family's level of cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, disengagement, sociability, enmeshment, organization, and parenting style. Multiple-regression analysis showed that the set of family-environment variables did predict alexithymia scores. The sole family variable independently predictive of global alexithymic tendencies was expressiveness, although other family variables were predictive of individual components of alexithymia. The findings are consistent with the view that the childhood family environment has a bearing on the development of alexithymic tendencies, although other explanations by no means are excluded.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Enriched environment increases neurogenesis in the adult rat dentate gyrus and improves spatial memory.

The fetal and even the young brain possesses a considerable degree of plasticity. The plasticity and rate of neurogenesis in the adult brain is much less pronounced. The present study was conducted to investigate whether housing conditions affect neurogenesis, learning, and memory in adult rats. Three-month-old rats housed either in isolation or in an enriched environment were injected intraperitoneally with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) to detect proliferation among progenitor cells and to follow their fate in the dentate gyrus. The rats were sacrificed either 1 day or 4 weeks after BrdU injections. This experimental paradigm allows for discrimination between proliferative effects and survival effects on the newborn progenitors elicited by different housing conditions. The number of newborn cells in the dentate gyrus was not altered 1 day after BrdU injections. In contrast, the number of surviving progenitors 1 month after BrdU injections was markedly increased in animals housed in an enriched environment. The relative ratio of neurogenesis and gliogenesis was not affected by environmental conditions, as estimated by double-labeling immunofluorescence staining with antibodies against BrdU and either the neuronal marker calbindin D28k or the glial marker GFAp, resulting in a net increase in neurogenesis in animals housed in an enriched environment. Furthermore, we show that adult rats housed in an enriched environment show improved performance in a spatial learning test. The results suggest that environmental cues can enhance neurogenesis in the adult hippocampal region, which is associated with improved spatial memory.

Aging↗

PubMed1986

Behavioral interactions of postweaning male and female rats with a complex environment.

Rats reared from weaning in a complex environment with other rats and numerous objects display sex differences in several brain areas, yet there is little systematic information on the types of interactions that rats have within complex environments or whether there are sex differences in these interactions. Therefore, male and female rats were observed in the complex environment over a 15-30 day period in three separate replications that included same-sex and mixed sex groups of rats. The rats spent considerably more time interacting with the objects than in social interactions in all replications, and the types of interactions varied little over the length of the study. A few sex differences appeared, such as in play fighting, but these differences were small and not consistent across replications. Male and female rats interacted with the environment in a very similar manner.

Animals↗

PubMed1988

Long-term effects of early mothering behavior on responsiveness to the environment in vervet monkeys.

The long-term effect of early mothering style on juvenile responsiveness to the external environment was studied in vervet monkeys living in two naturally composed, undisturbed social groups. Mothering behavior for 35 mother-infant dyads was analyzed by principal components analysis which revealed two independent dimensions: protectiveness and rejection. Protectiveness was characterized by high levels of approach, making contact, restraint, and inspection from mother to infant, and rejection was associated with high levels of rejection, breaking contact, and leaving. When observed as yearlings and 2-year-olds, juveniles who had had more protective early mothering showed less interest in the external environment, as measured by the percentage of time they spent looking outside the home enclosure. They also took longer to enter a completely novel environment compared to juveniles who had had less protective mothers. Maternal rejection was not significantly associated with looking out or with latency to enter the novel environment. These results were independent of the effects of age, sex, and dominance rank on behavior.

Aging↗

PubMed2003

Early environment contributes to developmental disruption of MPFC after neonatal ventral hippocampal lesions in rats.

Using a putative animal model of schizophrenia, neonatal rat ventral hippocampal (VH) lesions, combined with cross-fostering Lewis and Fisher rats, we previously demonstrated that the postpubertal expression of amphetamine-induced hyperlocomotion after lesioning depends on the early environment of the pups. However, an important question that emerged from our studies was whether the early environment leads to sparing of function within the VH or to the disruption of another structure, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). To answer this question, we took advantage of the natural variation in maternal care of Sprague-Dawley rat dams and separated them into high and low arched back nursing (ABN) groups. Then, on postnatal day 7 (PD7) the pups from the two groups of dams were lesioned in the VH. As a measure of VH function, the rats were tested in a reference memory paradigm, which demonstrated that nVH-lesioned rats raised by high or low ABN dams had pronounced deficits, suggesting that VH functions are not fully spared. Next, the integrity of the MPFC was tested in a number of paradigms in which MPFC function has been implicated. In all three paradigms a similar result was found, that only lesioned rats raised by high ABN dams displayed deficits, such as a lack of MPFC control of amphetamine-induced locomotion, decreased working memory, and decreased anxiety. These results suggest that the early environment does not affect the recovery of the VH to nVH lesion. Rather, the early environment interacts with nVH lesions in such a way that disrupts the development and function of MPFC.

Amphetamine↗

PubMed1998

Modeling and simulating morphological evolution in an artificial life environment.

This paper presents a computer-based environment designed to study biological evolution considering morphological aspects. It was inspired on cellular automata and evolutionary algorithm principles. Simple rules are used to determine the genotype and phenotype of individuals and their relationships with behavioral aspects in a square matrix environment, where individuals can evolve. Two methods to simulate mutational errors and to introduce variability of mutations are discussed. A series of four simulations show that the model promotes phenotype evolution depending on the distribution of food over the environment; morphology evolved as to favor movement of the individuals towards the portion of the environment in which the food has been distributed or to capture falling food.

Algorithms↗

PubMed1995

Influence of an enriched environment and cortical grafting on functional outcome in brain infarcts of adult rats.

The purpose of this work was to study if enriched housing conditions and fetal neocortical transplantation could enhance the functional outcome after focal brain ischemia in adult rats. The right middle cerebral artery (MCA) was ligated in 34 inbred, spontaneously hypertensive male rats, which were then randomly divided into three groups. Groups A and B were transferred to an enriched environment, i.e., a large cage with opportunities for various activities but not forcing the rats to do any particular tasks; group C was kept in standard laboratory cages. Three weeks after the MCA occlusion blocks of fetal neocortical tissue (Embryonic Day 17) were transplanted to the infarct cavity in groups B and C. Rats in group A (n = 11) and group B (n = 11) performed equally well and significantly better than rats in group C (n = 10) when placed on an inclined plane and when traversing a rotating pole 6 and 9 weeks after the MCA occlusion and in a leg placement test at 9, but not 6 and 12 weeks. Skilled forelimb function did not differ between the groups. Infarct size and thalamic atrophy did not differ between the groups and graft size was similar in group B and C. There was no correlation between infarct size and motor function in any of the tests in rats housed in an enriched environment. Since the environment can significantly alter functional outcome without reducing infarct size we suggest that more attention should be given to the role of the laboratory environment and to long term behavioral outcome in experimental stroke.

Animals↗

PubMed2000

The ultraviolet environment of Mars: biological implications past, present, and future.

A radiative transfer model is used to quantitatively investigate aspects of the martian ultraviolet radiation environment, past and present. Biological action spectra for DNA inactivation and chloroplast (photosystem) inhibition are used to estimate biologically effective irradiances for the martian surface under cloudless skies. Over time Mars has probably experienced an increasingly inhospitable photobiological environment, with present instantaneous DNA weighted irradiances 3.5-fold higher than they may have been on early Mars. This is in contrast to the surface of Earth, which experienced an ozone amelioration of the photobiological environment during the Proterozoic and now has DNA weighted irradiances almost three orders of magnitude lower than early Earth. Although the present-day martian UV flux is similar to that of early Earth and thus may not be a critical limitation to life in the evolutionary context, it is a constraint to an unadapted biota and will rapidly kill spacecraft-borne microbes not covered by a martian dust layer. Microbial strategies for protection against UV radiation are considered in the light of martian photobiological calculations, past and present. Data are also presented for the effects of hypothetical planetary atmospheric manipulations on the martian UV radiation environment with estimates of the biological consequences of such manipulations.

Atmosphere↗

PubMed1988

Characterization of the associative nature of sensitization to amphetamine-induced circling behavior and of the environment dependent placebo-like response.

Amphetamine-induced circling behavior increases over the course of repeated administration of the drug; likewise, after repeated administration of amphetamine, an injection of saline prior to placement of the rat in the test apparatus previously associated with the pharmacologic effects of amphetamine will increase circling behavior. Experiments were designed to determine if either of these effects would respond to manipulation of the temporal contiguity between the test environment and the peak effects of amphetamine. The placebo-like response, in accordance with a Pavlovian conditioned response, was reduced by prior non-reinforced exposure to the test environment and subject to extinction. In contrast, the increase in the amphetamine-induced response was entirely dependent on the test environment but not affected by latent inhibition or extinction. These and previous findings indicate that the development and expression of the placebo-like response is the result of a Pavlovian associative process. Although amphetamine sensitization is environment dependent, it does not resemble a conditioned response in other respects.

Amphetamine↗

PubMed1978

Stages of recovery from central norepinephrine lesions in enriched and impoverished environments: a behavioral and biochemical study.

Adult rats were injected intraventricularly with 6-OHDA and allowed to recover for varying time periods in either an enriched colony environment or in isolation cages. When tested behaviorally in a novel environment, isolated animals showed a cyclical recovery pattern, with behavioral changes at 14 days after lesioning which were different from those seen at 2 and 45 days after lesioning. In contrast, animals housed in a colony environment showed progressive improvement and better recovery than isolates. Biochemical studies of uptake of H3NE and histofluorescence indicated that colony housed animals had enrichment effects (higher cortical NE uptake), but they were also more susceptible to 6-OHDA and did not recover well from the lesions. Isolated animals showed somewhat better recovery of NE uptake following 6-OHDA injections, especially in cortex. Because behavioral recovery from 6-OHDA was dissociated from biochemical indicators of recovery in NE circuitry, these results imply that brain systems other than NE were primarily responsible for the enhanced behavioral recovery which occurs in enriched environments.

Animals↗

PubMed1979

Social-ecological assessment of environments: toward a two-factor model.

A study was conducted to test the usefulness of the two-factor model in assessing social environments. Subjects were residents and staff at a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed and/or delinquent boys and girls. Rating instruments consisted of (a) two parallel versions of Moos' Community-Oriented Programs Enivronment Scale (COPES), each worded so as to be appropriate to the setting being measured, and (b) global ratings of satisfaction with the environment. Principal component factor analyses, carried out separately on the youths' COPES-School and the youths' COPES-Cottage, yielded two orthogonal but similar factors in each environment. In a comparison with Moos' three-dimensional formulation of the social milieu, the two factors strongly resembled two of Moos' dimensions but were more independent, had greater validity, and discriminated between the two environments at a higher level of significance. The instruments derived from the factor analyses provide a simple procedure for assessing a variety of treatment programs and populations.

Adolescent↗