The design of objects, spaces and systems can have a profound influence on the behaviours as well as emotional and cognitive states of the people confronted with it. With regards to health behaviour, elaborating on Schwarzer's HAPA model (1992), the Design Model for Health Behaviour Change - DMHBC (Rehn, 2018) proposes the use of the built environment to act as situative barriers or opportunities to change health behaviours and overall health promoting mindsets. Regarding urban space and mental health, most environmental stimuli and related behavioural patterns focus on consumption (e.g. retail stores) or daily routines (e.g. commuting). Using objects such as specifically designed furniture, installations and other elements to act as perceived affordances and stimuli can affect both cognitive-emotional states as well as specific behavioural responses. For instance, based on the research on mindfulness, drawing people's attention towards their own bodily sensations (e.g. breath) by playful interactive installations or information signs can increase feelings of calm, appreciation and contentment. The same applies to design interventions that guide one's view towards otherwise overlooked urban features (e.g. natural scenery). While mindfulness and relaxation are powerful techniques for increasing mental health, many other approaches (such as physical activity, social interactions etc.) can be found to have similar benefits. In fact, the orchestrated combination of various forms of stimuli might prove to be more effective than the sum of the individual interventions as they create a subsequent chain of stimuli that form a coherent experience. This approach poses particular potentials to foster mental health in vulnerable groups that usually suffer most from urban environmental risk factors. Thus, providing public and open access stimuli and affordances in this way, can have a significant effect on overall urban public health and reduce social inequalities at the same time.
With roughly half of the global population living in cities, urban environments become central to public health often perceived as health risk factors. Indeed, mental disorders show higher incidences in urban contexts compared to rural areas. However, shared urban environments also provide a rich potential to act as a resource for mental health and as a platform to increase mental health literacy. Based on the concepts of salutogenesis and restorative environments, we propose a framework for urban design interventions. It outlines (a) an output level, i.e., preventive and discursive potentials of such interventions to act as biopsychosocial resources, and (b) a process level, i.e., mechanisms of inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration of researchers and citizens in the design process. This approach aims at combining evidence-based, salutogenic, psychosocially-supportive design with a focus on mental health. Implementing low-threshold, resource-efficient options in the existing urban context brings this topic to the public space. Implications for the implementation of such interventions for citizens, researchers, and municipality stakeholders are discussed. This illustrates new directions of research for urban person-environment interactions, public health, and beyond.
People shape their physical environments - and vice versa. As such, cities provide both resources (e.g., job opportunities, cultural diversity) as well as stressors (e.g., crowding, noise pollution) to their residents and visitors. In this context, numerous studies illustrate a considerable influence of the built environment (townscape, architecture) on health and well-being of interacting people. This impact ranges from physical aspects (e.g., traffic safety, particulate matter) to psychological processes (e.g., stress, loneliness) and behavioral aspects (e.g., physical activity, social behavior). At the same time, phenomena such as homelessness, crime, or mental disorders (e.g., substance addictions, schizophrenia) occur more frequently in cities compared to rural areas, illustrating causal as well as selective processes in the relation of urban environment and mental health. Increasing overall incidences in mental disorders (especially anxiety disorders and depression), the short-term shortage of psychotherapeutic care as well as the long-term economic burden on the health care system ask for a twofold strategy in public health: a) an extension of preventive measures with low threshold, i.e., accessible by large shares of the population, b) an extension of mental health literacy, which will empower the population to be attentive to mental health issues in themselves and others and which in turn can help to reduce stigmatization. While urban green and blue spaces have been researched in terms of restorative environments - allowing to regenerate resources consumed during the day - the built environment is still a resource for this strategy that has received insufficient attention to date. Utilizing the urban built environment not only as restorative but also informative and engaging environments thus affords an opportunity to address and potentially foster mental health and mental health literacy in citizens across socioeconomic backgrounds.
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