Urban regeneration policies and mental health in a context of economic crisis in Andalusia (Spain)

Literature suggests that urban regeneration policies might contribute towards improving the mental health of residents, but to date, there is a lack of empirical research on how these policies and downward social mobility can interact and influence health outcomes. The current study aims to explicitly test whether regeneration policies implemented in deprived Andalusian urban places (southern Spain) moderate the use of anxiolytics and antidepressants, considering families’ downward social mobility during the recent period of economic crisis in Spain. We designed a post-intervention survey to retrospectively compare the evolution of psychotropic drug consumption in target and comparison areas. We observe a general increase in the use of anxiolytics and antidepressants from 2008 to 2015, specifically for people in whose families the economic crisis had the greatest. Therefore, urban regeneration policies might act as moderators of mental health risk, particularly when people are subject to the loss of individual/family resources in vulnerable urban contexts.

Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10901-020-09774-0