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Equity
Equal-Life’s studies cast new light on the links between social inequalities and child mental health problems.
The rural/urban divide finding holds important implications for exposome research.
Future studies may need to take account of population density by forming distinct hypotheses or interpretations depending on whether the study population resides in a rural or urban setting.
Further research is needed on activity patterns, in particular focusing on the roles of social differences and structural inequities.
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.
