Rationale: Social identification with the people in one's neighbourhood has a wide variety of benefits for individual and community health and wellbeing. In particular, previous research shows that residents' social identification with their neighbourhood is protective of mental health. However, researchers are only just beginning to design and evaluate interventions that directly target social identification on health grounds.

Objective: This longitudinal study evaluated a whole-of-community intervention at scale (Neighbour Day, 2019), in which Australian residents were encouraged to build social connections in their local community. Neighbour Day is a campaign that seeks to raise public awareness of the importance of connecting with neighbours and had a reach of approximately 300,000 people in 2019.

Methods: Participants were 437 hosts of neighbourhood events held across 276 diverse suburbs across Australia. Participants were surveyed at three-time points; before and after Neighbour Day, as well as at six-month follow up.

Results: Hosting a Neighbour Day event led to a significant increase in neighbourhood social identification, which was sustained six months later. This increase in social identification predicted increased social cohesion, reduced loneliness and improved wellbeing.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence that neighbourhood identification is an effective target mechanism to curb loneliness and social fragmentation in the community. Implications are discussed with a focus on how social identity-building interventions can be effectively implemented in community settings to benefit public health.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113909DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

social identification
20
neighbour day
16
social
9
whole-of-community intervention
8
increase neighbourhood
8
neighbourhood identification
8
identification
7
neighbourhood
6
evidence loneliness
4
loneliness reduced
4

Similar Publications

The identification of family-level and modifiable factors that are influential determinants of parenting is of critical importance. The present study of mothers and fathers investigated within- and across-parent linkages between sleep duration and variability, the coparenting relationship, and parenting quality, as well as the moderating effect of coparenting in a sample of families with children making the transition to kindergarten using a family systems perspective. Mothers and fathers from 225 families participated in the late summer before their child started kindergarten.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hearing loss in children can have a detrimental impact on their development, thus lowering the psychological well-being of parents. This study examined the amount of parental stress, learned helplessness, and perceived social support in mothers of children with hearing loss (MCHL) and mothers of typically developing children (MTDC), as well as the relationship between various possible contributing factors to parental stress such as learned helplessness and perceived social support. Three questionnaires measured parental stress (Parental Stress Scale; PSS), learned helplessness (Learned Helplessness Scale; LHS), and perceived social support (Perceived Social Support-Friends PSS-Fr and Perceived Social Support-Family PSS-Fa Scale) in 100 MCHL and 90 MTDC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Navigating DR-TB Treatment care: a qualitative exploration of barriers and facilitators to retention in care among people with history of early disengagement from drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment in Johannesburg, South Africa.

BMC Health Serv Res

January 2025

HIV and Other Infectious Diseases Research Unit (HIDRU), South African Medical Research Council: CAPRISA-MRC HIV-TB Pathogenesis and Treatment Research Unit, Free State, South Africa.

Background: Despite advances in drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) diagnosis, treatment, and service delivery, individuals with DR-TB often face significant socioeconomic and psychosocial challenges due to limited resources. These challenges can hinder retention in care, undermining the progress made in DR-TB management. As a consequence, advances in DR-TB diagnostics and treatment have not resulted in DR-TB programs meeting the 75% treatment success targets set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Identification of depressive symptoms in adolescents using machine learning combining childhood and adolescence features.

BMC Public Health

January 2025

Department of Health and Intelligent Engineering, College of Health Management, China Medical University, 110122, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China.

Background: Depressive symptoms in adolescents can significantly affect their daily lives and pose risks to their future development. These symptoms may be linked to various factors experienced during both childhood and adolescence. Machine learning (ML) has attracted substantial attention in the field of adolescent depression; however, studies establishing prediction models have primarily considered childhood or adolescent features separately, resulting in a lack of analyses that incorporate factors from both stages.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Identification of factors related to functional prognoses in craniopharyngiomas.

J Neurooncol

January 2025

Department of Neurological Surgery, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama, 700-8558, Japan.

Purpose: Craniopharyngiomas are histologically benign tumors, but their proximity to vital neurovascular structures can significantly deteriorate functional prognoses and severely restrict patients' social interaction and activity. We retrospectively identified risk factors related to the functional prognoses in patients with craniopharyngioma treated at our center.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 40 patients who underwent surgery for craniopharyngioma and follow-up at our institution between 2003 and 2022.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!