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Access to greenspace in the form of urban parks is frequently used to study the mental health benefits of nature and may alleviate depression. However, there is a lack of research that considers the different types of vegetated and non-vegetated spaces that parks can provide. Our aim was to investigate whether different types of accessible park area, grassy; tree covered; and non-vegetated, were associated with depressive symptoms among older (≥50 years) urban US adults. We used interviews from the Health and Retirement Study spanning 2010 through 2016 as our primary data source. We calculated total grassy, tree covered, and non-vegetated park space accessible to participants using a comprehensive national database of US parks and a high resolution (10 m) landcover dataset. To measure depressive symptoms, we used the CESD-8 analyzed as a continuous scale. We used Poisson regression to estimate the percent difference in CESD-8 scores comparing quartiles of accessible park space. To control for confounding, we adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, geography, and climate. Aggregated accessible park area was not substantively associated with depressive symptoms. However, having grassy park area near the home was associated with as much as 27 % fewer depressive symptoms. In contrast, non-vegetated park area was associated with up to 54 % more depressive symptoms. Our findings were robust to adjustment for air pollution, environmental noise, and artificial light at night. Different types of accessible park space may have disparate effects on mental health among older urban US adults.

Objective: The ability to choose one's work-location can influence burnout from employment. We sought to evaluate potential associations between autonomy in work-location decision and burnout. Methods: We used 2020 Veterans Health Administration Annual All Employee Survey data from behavioral health providers at 129 medical facilities. Based on responses to items in a COVID-19 module related to teleworking frequency and reasons for not teleworking both pre- and during COVID-19, we generated six groups representing potentially differing levels of work-location decision autonomy. We hypothesized that greater autonomy is associated with less burnout. Results: Psychologists reported highest burnout (40.1%, 1801/4494), followed by psychiatrists (35.6%, 703/1976) and social workers (31.0%, 3421/11,051). Adjusting for covariates including workload, providers newly approved for telework during COVID-19 showed 1.28 (95% CI=1.03–1.59), 1.71 (1.25–2.35), and 1.35 (0.86–2.12) times higher odds of burnout among social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists, respectively, compared to providers chose not to telework during COVID-19. Conclusions: Providers who chose to keep coming into work in person reported less burnout than providers who previously could not telework and are teleworking during the pandemic. Greater autonomy in work-location decision might have greater importance in reducing burnout in behavioral health providers than having the ability to telework per se.

Equitable access to urban vegetation (also known as greenness), an environmental determinant of health, is an important environmental justice issue. Researchers often consider parks a source of greenness but there is a lack of research explicitly investigating the sociodemographic correlates of greenness within city parks. Using a high-resolution landcover dataset, publicly available park boundaries, and American Community Survey data, we investigated the relationship between greenness within urban public parks and the sociodemographic characteristics of surrounding neighborhoods. We found that parks were substantially greener than surrounding neighborhoods and that Black race, Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, and socioeconomic deprivation was associated with less tree canopy and more grass and impervious surface or soil within parks. Public parks are indeed an important source of greenness for urban populations, but the type of vegetation in those spaces depends on the city and sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhoods. Future research and interventions should consider both the type and amount of vegetation within parks.

Introduction: Risk factors and treatment rates for substance use disorders (SUDs) differ by sex. Females often have greater childcare and household responsibilities than males, which may inhibit SUD treatment. We examined how SUD, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) receipt, and overdose rates differ by sex among parents with young children (

Objectives: This study investigates heterogeneity in trajectories of depressive symptomatology in a national sample of American adults followed over 25 years. Using an innovative combination of data and methods, we sought to illuminate how depressive symptoms change over adulthood in terms of their levels and severity across 25 years, and how the social determinants of health influence differences in those trajectory paths. Methods: Data come from the Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL) study, a national sample of 3617 adults (age 25+) followed over 25 years (1986–2011). Depressive symptoms were assessed with an 11-item abbreviated version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale (CESD). A second-order growth mixture model was used to assess measurement invariance (addressing questions of different or changing meaning of depression) and latent trajectories of change (addressing questions of changing severity levels with aging) in depressive symptomatology over adulthood. Results: Results indicate that the CESD was invariant across time, and depressive symptomatology followed a U-shaped form across the life course. Two latent trajectories of depressive symptoms were identified across the life course; one was a normative trajectory (60% of the sample) and the other (40% of the sample) had persistently high depressive symptoms over adulthood. Women, race/ethnic minorities, and those of lower socioeconomic position were more likely to be in the persistently depressed class. Discussion: Results are consistent with those of other studies demonstrating a U-shaped form of depressive symptoms across the life course. However, a substantial sub-population with persistent depressive symptomatology over adulthood was also identified, whose predictors suggest the need to take a social determinants of health approach to disparities related to serious and persistent mental illness.

Objective: This study aims to identify the prevalence of suicidal ideation (SI) and elevated depressive symptoms (depression) in the immediate postpartum period, defined as the first three days after delivery. Methods: This cross-sectional study includes 10,401 women screened for depressive symptoms using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale immediately after giving birth in a major delivery hospital in Illinois between 2012 and 2016. We used chi-square tests and logistic regression models to compare outcomes across demographic groups in the study. Results: Of the women screened, 709 (7.7%) women had elevated depressive symptoms and 240 (2.3%) reported SI immediate postpartum period. We found significantly different rates of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation across self-reported racial/ethnic groups. For depression, when compared to White women, Black and Asian women reported higher rates elevated depressive symptoms, but these differences were not significant in the adjusted logistic regression model. For SI, after adjustments, Asian women remained 8.98 times as likely and Black women 2.11 times as likely to report SI compared to their White counterparts. Discussion: Results suggests that elevated depressive symptoms are common among women after giving birth and recovering in the maternity unit. Thus, the maternity unit may play a critical role in early detection of women, but translation into referral, treatment, and follow-up from inpatient to outpatient settings remains to be determined.