Air quality and mental health amid COVID-19: a prospective population-based analysis of the mediating role of daily routine disruptions

IF 2.9 4区环境科学与生态学 Q3 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Air Quality Atmosphere and Health Pub Date : 2025-07-03 DOI:10.1007/s11869-025-01781-w

Selina Kit Yi Chan, Crystal Jingru Li, Percy Poo-see Tse, Evon Lam Wong, Anan Wang, Huinan Liu, Stevan E. Hobfoll, Chi Yung Jim, Wai Kai Hou

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Previous evidence consistently demonstrated a robust positive association between poor air quality and common psychiatric symptoms of depression and anxiety. This relationship was exacerbated by potentially traumatic events such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Daily routine disruptions could aggravate the impact of poor air quality on psychiatric symptoms. This study aims to investigate the positive links between poor air quality and depressive and anxiety symptoms and the mediating effects of daily routine disruptions on the associations in a population-representative cohort in Hong Kong amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A territory-wide cohort study of a population-representative sample of 1333 Hong Kong Chinese respondents was conducted to assess daily routine disruptions from March to August 2021 (T1) using the Sustainability of Living Inventory. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were measured at two time points: T1 and again from October 2021 to February 2022 (T2) using the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the General Anxiety Disorder-7, respectively. Air Quality Health Index scores (AQHI) were obtained from the government database at T1. Path analysis examined the hypothesized indirect effect of T1 AQHI on T2 psychiatric symptoms via T1 daily routine disruptions, controlling for the effects of demographic and environmental covariates. Path analyses revealed that disruptions to sleep and socializing at T1 fully mediated the positive association between T1 AQHI and T2 depressive symptoms, whereas T1 disruptions to healthy eating, sleep, socializing, and exercising fully mediated the positive association between T1 AQHI and T2 anxiety symptoms. The current findings suggest that people could be oblivious to changes in air quality, but they increase psychiatric symptoms in the population by disrupting the regularity of daily routines. Regularizing daily routines could offer an easy and scalable approach for improving population mental health in urban areas in the face of increasing climate change burdens.

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2019冠状病毒病期间的空气质量和心理健康：对日常干扰的中介作用的前瞻性基于人群的分析

先前的证据一致表明，空气质量差与抑郁和焦虑等常见精神症状之间存在强烈的正相关。最近的COVID-19大流行等潜在创伤事件加剧了这种关系。日常生活的中断可能会加剧空气质量差对精神症状的影响。本研究旨在调查在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间，香港一个具有人口代表性的队列中，空气质量差与抑郁和焦虑症状之间的正相关关系，以及日常生活中断对这些关联的中介作用。为了评估2021年3月至8月（T1）期间的日常生活中断情况，我们对具有人口代表性的1333名香港华人受访者进行了一项全港性队列研究。在两个时间点：T1和2021年10月至2022年2月（T2），分别使用9项患者健康问卷和一般焦虑障碍-7测量抑郁和焦虑症状。空气质量健康指数得分（AQHI）在T1从政府数据库获得。通径分析通过T1日常生活中断检验了T1 AQHI对T2精神症状的间接影响，控制了人口统计学和环境协变量的影响。通径分析显示，T1睡眠和社交中断完全介导T1 AQHI与T2抑郁症状之间的正相关，而T1健康饮食、睡眠、社交和运动中断完全介导T1 AQHI与T2焦虑症状之间的正相关。目前的研究结果表明，人们可能对空气质量的变化视而不见，但空气质量的变化扰乱了人们的日常生活规律，从而增加了人们的精神症状。面对日益增加的气候变化负担，使日常生活正规化可以为改善城市地区人口的心理健康提供一种简单和可扩展的方法。

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来源期刊

Air Quality Atmosphere and Health ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES-

CiteScore

8.80

自引率

2.00%

发文量

146

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Air Quality, Atmosphere, and Health is a multidisciplinary journal which, by its very name, illustrates the broad range of work it publishes and which focuses on atmospheric consequences of human activities and their implications for human and ecological health. It offers research papers, critical literature reviews and commentaries, as well as special issues devoted to topical subjects or themes. International in scope, the journal presents papers that inform and stimulate a global readership, as the topic addressed are global in their import. Consequently, we do not encourage submission of papers involving local data that relate to local problems. Unless they demonstrate wide applicability, these are better submitted to national or regional journals. Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health addresses such topics as acid precipitation; airborne particulate matter; air quality monitoring and management; exposure assessment; risk assessment; indoor air quality; atmospheric chemistry; atmospheric modeling and prediction; air pollution climatology; climate change and air quality; air pollution measurement; atmospheric impact assessment; forest-fire emissions; atmospheric science; greenhouse gases; health and ecological effects; clean air technology; regional and global change and satellite measurements. This journal benefits a diverse audience of researchers, public health officials and policy makers addressing problems that call for solutions based in evidence from atmospheric and exposure assessment scientists, epidemiologists, and risk assessors. Publication in the journal affords the opportunity to reach beyond defined disciplinary niches to this broader readership.