Associations between Depression and Building Heights, Street Widths, and Street Trees in the Nurses' Health Studies

Background. High-rise buildings are suggested to impose psychological pressure (i.e. oppressiveness) in dense urban environments. In a pilot study, we explored whether depression outcomes varied by exposure to tall buildings, and examined the possibility of effect-measure modification by street trees.

Methods. We selected respondents to the 2008 Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) questionnaire (n=1625), and respondents to the 2009 Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII) questionnaire (n = 2957) who lived in New York City. We created measures of building heights (maximum, standard deviation, average, total volume and total building number), number of trees, and average street-widths within 100m and 40m radial buffers of each participant’s address using Geographic Information Systems. In NHS, we conducted multivariable linear regression based on the Geriatric Depression Score (GDS), and logistic regression examining the outcomes of doctor-diagnosed depression, antidepressant use, or a GDS score of ≥6. In NHSII, we conducted logistic regression for doctor-diagnosed depression and antidepressant use. We also ran stratified analyses by number of trees within each buffer.

Findings. Over 8% reported doctor-diagnosed depression and 10% reported antidepressant use in the NHS sample, while 16% reported doctor-diagnosed depression and 16% reported antidepressant use among NHSII participants. All associations between environmental measures and depression were non-significant, and we did not observe a statistically significant linear trend for any environmental measure. There was no evidence of effect modification by street trees.

Conclusions. Although the study sample was small, we observed no relationship between depression and building heights, street-width, or street trees in the proximity of participants’ residential addresses.

Keywords: 

Built environment; Depression; Building height; Trees; Street width