City life as a risk factor for the health?
Life in the city offers a number of advantages, but, apparently, can also pose a health risk. In a recent study, researchers examined the end of the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the effect of city life on emotions, behavior, and mental health – with quite alarming results.
More and more people are moving from rural regions to the cities, because the city can live with a few advantages. What are the effects on health of living in cities, is therefore of high relevance for the whole of society. The current study of the Charité-scientists Prof. Dr. med. Mazda Adli and Jonas nice the village has examined the impact of city life on mental health. Were published the results of the study in the Federal health sheet.
Advantages of city life
Basically, the city offers some advantages, such as “more favourable to individual development and growth conditions, a denser training and support offer, better opportunities for prosperity, better health care and a rich cultural offer,” explain the researchers. In view of the advantages of city life, put it has always been the people in the cities.
“Cities are the same in all parts of the world, the economic, the scientific, the cultural and political centers of the respective Nations. And they are essential engines for society and social Integration“, stresses the research team.
Noise pollution and Stress
In addition to the obvious benefits the city brings to life, but also some disadvantages. So the people here are, for example, traffic noise is increasingly exposed to stress, which in turn can have negative health consequences. Also, the current study comes to the conclusion that, with the city at an increased risk for a number of life is connected to mental illness.
The information provided by the researchers according to the risk for stress-related mental illness in the city is greater than in the country. “This is especially true for schizophrenia, a group of mental illness that is often characterized by disturbances of Experience, perception, Thinking, drive, and affect”, the scientists report. Schizophrenia come with the city’s population at least twice as often as in the case of the population of the country,
Significant increased risk of the disease
Furthermore, I have shown in a Swedish study of 4.4 million women and men, that persons living in more densely populated areas, had a 68 to 77 percent higher risk for psychotic disorders and a 12 to 20 percent increased risk for Depression in comparison to individuals from the most sparsely populated areas.
Only high-income countries affected
However, the risk of other mental illnesses will be increased according to the researchers. So the risk for affective and anxiety disorders increases in the city. However, this is true only for the cities in the high-income industrial Nations. “At least for psychotic symptoms, including schizophrenia, appears to be the increased disease risk for city-dwellers to be a Problem specific to the high-income countries, with their typical social structures” explain the researchers.
There is a causal connection?
The city’s population in the high-income States clearly has a higher risk for a number of significant mental illness groups, however, remains the question of the causal connection. So could it finally be that people with vulnerability to mental problems is simply increased in the cities (the selection hypothesis), the scientists report. Even if such selection effects occur certainly, speak, in particular, the dose-effect Relation between urban living and schizophrenia, however, of a causal link, the conclusion of the experts. (fp)