Children's Mental Health Is Better If Children Are Raised in Rural Areas

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Living in urban areas does make social interaction somewhat reduced compared to living in rural areas. In urban areas, the relationship between neighbors is more individualistic, high crime rates, and so on. But apparently, the lifestyle of urban communities can have a bad influence on the mental health of children living in urban areas.

Signs of psychological disturbance in children and adults in the city are indeed two times higher than those who live in rural areas. What is terrible, according to the United Nations (UN) report, two-thirds of the total population in the world will live in urban areas by 2050. This means that this problem needs to be resolved as soon as possible so that future children can avoid mental health problems.

Previously, many studies have proven the existence of psychological problems in children living in urban environments, such as: paranoid, hearing or seeing things that should not exist, or believing that other people can read their minds. In fact, this psychological effect can affect adulthood, such as schizophrenia or other psychological problems. However, just recently scientists were on Duke University and King’s College London find the cause.

Signs of psychological problems in urban children are twice as high

The researchers followed the development of 2,232 children from birth until they were 12 years old. The psychological state of each child was observed through interviews with these children when they were 12 years old. While the environment around the children was surveyed through high resolution geospatial data obtained from administrative data and Google Street View images.

Both of these data (psychological conditions and environmental conditions), then combined to see why children living in urban areas can have a higher risk of experiencing mental health. Researchers chose activities, economic status, and family psychological history as controls (factors considered equal). For long-term research, scientists also controlled the mental health history of the families of these children and a history of psychological signs from children's mothers.

As a result, 12-year-old children living in urban areas can have signs of psychological problems two times higher than children who do not live in urban areas. About 7.4% of children living in urban areas experience at least one sign of psychological disorders. As for children who do not live in urban environments, only 4.4% of these children experience signs of psychological disorders.

Why is that so?

First of all, Candice Odgers, professor of psychology associations and public rules at Duke University and the director of the senior association at University’s Center for Child and Family Policy, starting the explanation by stating that it needs to be understood if the community around children lives will affect the children themselves. This research will help the community to find out specifically what kind of environment is harmful to children's mental health.

Therefore, these scientists grouped the data they collected into 4 groups, which were divided based on the circumstances surrounding the place where the children lived:

Supportive and compact environment between neighbors.
An interfering environment if one of the neighbors has a problem.
A slum environment, such as scribbling on walls, damage here and there, noisy neighbors, and many people fighting.
The environment where many criminals are

Apparently, children who live in environments where social interaction is lacking, their social control is lacking, and have been victims of crime are more exposed to psychological signs. However, the combination of a lack of social interaction and at the same time criminal victims is the most problematic. The combination of these two factors explains directly a quarter of all relationships between urban life and psychological problems in children.

An interesting finding from this study is that money is not everything. Not that the children live in families that experience economic difficulties, so they will experience mental health problems. In addition, the state of social interaction is also easy to change depending on the level of the community itself.

Further research is still needed, especially for its effects in the future

This research can be used to help develop social assistance and medical intervention to identify signs of a child's mental health problems early on. The question that arises now is, "Will high crime increase alertness and paranoia in children?" Or "Do children who live in a messy environment affect how children face difficult times?" furthermore, how social and biological mechanisms are related to these children.

In addition, it is also important to know the effects of mental health problems on these children when they are adults. It should be remembered that it does not mean that when the child is young he has psychological problems, then later it will continue to grow so that when the child is mature, the child has a severe mental disorder. Mostly, this psychological problem will slowly disappear. But this psychological problem can also trigger other problems later.

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