Abstract
There is increasing interest in the influence of place on health, and the need to distinguish between environmental and individual level factors. For environmental-level factors, current evidence tends to show associations through cross-sectional and uncontrolled longitudinal analyses rather than through more robust study designs that can provide stronger causal evidence. We restricted this systematic review to randomised (or cluster) randomised controlled trials and controlled before-and-after studies of changes to the built environment. Date of search was December 2016. We identified 14 studies. No evidence was found of an effect on mental health from ‘urban regeneration’ and ‘improving green infrastructure’ studies. Beneficial effects on quality-of-life outcomes from ‘improving green infrastructure’ were found in two studies. One ‘improving green infrastructure’ study reported an improvement in social isolation. Risk-of-bias assessment indicated robust data from only four studies. Overall, evidence for the impact of built environment interventions on mental health and quality-of-life is weak. Future research requires more robust study designs and interdisciplinary research involving public health, planning and urban design experts.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 237-257 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Health and Place |
Volume | 53 |
Early online date | 6 Sept 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 6 Sept 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Research Groups and Themes
- DECIPHer
Keywords
- Mental health
- Meta-analysis
- Systematic review
- Urban environment
- Well-being