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Review
. 2024:68:277-296.
doi: 10.1007/7854_2024_464.

Area-level Measures of the Social Environment: Operationalization, Pitfalls, and Ways Forward

Marco Helbich  1   2   3 , Yi Zeng  4 , Abeed Sarker  5
Affiliations
Review

Area-level Measures of the Social Environment: Operationalization, Pitfalls, and Ways Forward

Marco Helbich et al. Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2024.

Erratum in

Abstract

People's mental health is intertwined with the social environment in which they reside. This chapter explores approaches for quantifying the area-level social environment, focusing specifically on socioeconomic deprivation and social fragmentation. We discuss census data and administrative units, egocentric and ecometric approaches, neighborhood audits, social media data, and street view-based assessments. We close the chapter by discussing possible paths forward from associations between social environments and health to establishing causality, including longitudinal research designs and time-series social environmental indices.

Keywords: Area-level measures; Mental health; Social environment; Social fragmentation; Socioeconomic deprivation.

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References

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