Background: The environment shapes health behaviors and outcomes. Studies exploring this influence have been limited to research groups with the geographic information systems expertise required to develop built and social environment measures (eg, groups that include a researcher with geographic information system expertise).
Objective: The goal of this study was to develop an open-source, user-friendly, and privacy-preserving tool for conveniently linking built, social, and natural environmental variables to study participant addresses.
While census-defined measures of gentrification are often used in research on gentrification and health, surveys can be used to better understand how residents perceive neighborhood change, and the implications for mental health. Whether or not gentrification affects mental health may depend on the extent to which an individual perceives changes in their neighborhood. Using health and map-based survey data, collected from 2020 to 2021, from the Interventions, Research, and Action in Cities Team, we examined links between perceptions of neighborhood change, census-defined neighborhood gentrification at participant residential addresses, and mental health among 505 adults living in Montréal.
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