AmbientaMENT

Background

Environmental exposures can have a substantial impact on people’s lives. In particular, heat waves and peaks in air pollution have been associated with increased mortality and hospitalizations, and with a worsening of quality of life. In the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area, these two types of exposure affect neighborhoods differently, both due to their geographical characteristics (neighborhoods closer to the sea have lower temperatures during the day) and sociodemographic characteristics (older people, people in energy poverty, people living in neighborhoods with few green spaces, people with low levels of education). Temperature and air pollution have also been associated with worse mental health, which is fundamental for a good quality of life. Higher temperatures and pollutant concentrations are linked to increased depression, anxiety, and suicides.

Objectives

The proposal, which has received nearly 150,000 euros in the category of “Aging and Quality of Life”, aims to understand the mental burden derived from the environment, health, and their differential impacts by neighborhood, taking into account social inequality axes such as gender, age, place of birth, and socioeconomic level. To understand this relationship, they will carry out a novel and advanced quantitative study that will link environmental data with three types of mental health data (diagnoses, drugs registered in primary care, and sick leave), and a qualitative study that will help explain differences by inequality axes and strengthen social impact.

A significant part of the project will be dissemination, which is why they will openly publish a risk map with the results where citizens, political leaders, and the scientific community can interactively and easily visualize the project’s results.