Equity

Equal-Life’s studies cast new light on the links between social inequalities and child mental health problems.

Inter-disciplinary teams working to improve children’s environment for better mental health and cognitive development outcomes can use Equal-Life’s findings to prioritise equity at all stages of planning.

HOW? Implementing urban interventions and research projects, and to identify socially-disadvantaged groups who could benefit from interventions and research.

Key Equal Life findings on “Equity”

Exposome “clusters”

We used the Social Exposome Conceptual Framework to assess data from a child cohort study in Amsterdam, and identified 8 “exposome clusters” to describe groups of children sharing co-occurring physical and social exposures (such as neighbourhood economic deprivation, poor access to green space, mothers mental health etc)

We found that the more deprived the neighborhoods and the higher the prevalence of maternal mental health problems, the higher the prevalence of children with mental health issues. In the conceptual model, this aspect is referred to as “relational dynamics”.

Social Exposome Conceptual Framework

We developed a Social Exposome conceptual framework, incorporating 60 variables measuring aspects of the social, societal, built and natural environment, to enable holistic assessments of how the wider social environment impacts health.

Equity Lens

We developed an Equity Lens consisting of questions mapped to an intervention process (planning, implementation and evaluation) covering key aspects of environmental justice.

We used the Equity Lens to improve the consideration of equity aspects in the Play Space Policy for the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Take action on equity

Call to action

During research and intervention planning, use the “Social Exposome conceptual framework” as a strategic map to decode the impact of the social environment.

Use our exploratory statistical approach to identify “exposome clusters”. This can help identify particularly disadvantaged social groups as a starting point to develop interventions to improve their living conditions

Use the “Equity Lens” questions to promote a health equity-perspective in all phases of urban interventions, from scoping and planning, to implementing and evaluating. The Equity Lens publication is under review – contact Gabriele Bolte (gabriele.bolte@uni-bremen.de) for more information