by Alexander Wray, Gina Martin, Jamie Seabrook, Jason Gilliland, Kendra Nelson Ferguson and Stephanie Coen, The Conversation

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth as a population group reported some of the largest declines in their mental health compared to other age groups in Canada.

Research on youth mental health during the pandemic has focused on poor academic engagement, loss of peer networks, missed milestone events and challenging summer employment experiences. Yet little is known about how the places where young people lived played a role in changes to their mental health during the pandemic.

From walking in a park to ordering takeout food, there was not much to do out in public during the early months of the pandemic. Youth were attending school remotely and no longer participating in organized sports and indoor recreation.

For many, that meant their daily activities outside the home often consisted of what could be reached within walking distance of where they lived. Parks and food-related retail became the main places for physically distanced social interactions. They became a break in the routines of remote school, activities and virtual social networks available at home.

Neighborhood amenities

Our study included Canadian youth between the ages of 13 and 19 in London, Ont. We investigated how the availability of neighborhood amenities may have contributed to positive or negative changes in mental health—interpreted as their own perception of their mood and outlook on life—and stress levels during the first six months of the pandemic.

Amenities included parks, food outlets and convenience stores in close proximity to home.

We investigated whether these amenities could have protected against declines in mental health and increases in stress levels, and also if youth living in suburban neighborhoods had different perceptions of mental health and stress levels than those living in urban ones.

The missing role of parks

Surprisingly, the availability of parks near the home had no significant impact on mental health and stress levels of youth. This finding runs counter to evidence that suggests these places were crucial to supporting well-being during the pandemic.

Given the pre-pandemic challenges of engaging young people in using their local parks, these places may have not played as substantial a role in supporting better mental health and lowering stress levels for youth compared to other neighborhood amenities.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.