{"id":2870,"date":"2020-07-12T08:48:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T08:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/?p=2870"},"modified":"2020-07-12T08:53:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T08:53:39","slug":"public-spaces-and-mental-health-in-times-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/en\/health-nutrition\/public-spaces-and-mental-health-in-times-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Spaces and Mental Health in Times of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Public Spaces and Mental Health in Times of COVID-19\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1O8zM32Gqls?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0013935120305806\">Israeli study<\/a> published in May examines how short visits to the outdoor urban environment, compared to staying at home, affect Jewish and Muslim women&#8217;s psychological and physiological health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To determine the\neffects of different urban environments on the women, Diana Saadi, during her\nPhD, under the supervision of Prof. Izhak Schnell and Prof. Emanuel\nTirosh,&nbsp; measured different outcomes,\nincluding positive and negative emotions, heart rate variability (which\nassesses the autonomic nervous system balance), and working memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition, several other factors, or so-called mediators, were measured, such as\nnoise, heat, and carbon monoxide levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This\nis the first study comparing staying at home to spending time outdoors and the\neffects of different outside environments on humans. It&#8217;s also strong evidence\nfor the importance of short visits to urban parks or green spaces, especially\nfor city dwellers,&#8221; says Dr. Keren Agay-Shay, an environmental\nepidemiologist at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar Ilan University and\nthe principal investigator in this study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We can say two things for sure by looking at the findings of the study. For Arab women, every trip from their home, improved their mood and positive emotions, whether it was a visit to the urban environment or a city park. For Jewish women, an improvement in mood could only be seen in the parks. In addition, the greatest improvement for all the psychological, physiological, and cognitive outcomes was observed in parks for the Jewish and the Arab women,&#8221; Agay Shay says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16352197349_591c75daaa_o-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2877\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16352197349_591c75daaa_o-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16352197349_591c75daaa_o-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16352197349_591c75daaa_o-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16352197349_591c75daaa_o-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16352197349_591c75daaa_o.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>For Arab women, every trip from their home improved their mood and positive emotions. For Jewish women, an improvement in mood could only be seen in the parks. Photo by Bezalel Ben-Chaim on Flickr<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Linking\nthe study to COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nheadline of the study asks, &#8220;There is no place like home?&#8221; which is\nironically reminiscent of the still ongoing corona crisis and the accompanied\nquarantine measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the experiment was conducted in 2015-2016 and has no connection whatsoever to the coronavirus pandemic, Agay-Shay emphasizes how COVID-19 has given the study results new and previously unforeseen importance. &#8220;Based on the study results, we knew that recreational visits to local parks or any public outdoor spaces have positive effects on our overall well-being. COVID-19 has not only substantiated that but shown us how fundamentally important those visits are.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;During\nthe COVID-19 quarantine, we all had to stay at home, and it&#8217;s important to\nremember how claustrophobic an experience that can be for someone who does not\nhave a garden or a green space close to their home,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According\nto Agay-Shay, the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Myers-JDC-Brookdale\nInstitute, each ran a survey in which they found that during the quarantine,\nboth Israeli Arab and Israeli Jewish people had an increase in stress and anxiety, depression and negative emotions more\nthan usual. &#8220;However,\nthe data demonstrates that the Arab population suffered more during the\nlockdown. The psychological effects like depression and stress were stronger\nthan in the Jewish population, Agay-Shay says.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am not\ngoing to speculate on the exact reasons for this disparity, but the fact that\nmost Arab neighborhoods don\u2019t have parks and green spaces, I think clearly had\nan impact on the mental state of many people in those communities during the\nlockdown,\u201d Agay-Shay emphasizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition, Agay-Shay believes that socioeconomic factors and lower environmental\njustice in Israel also played a role in how different members of society\nexperienced quarantine. Even in Tel Aviv, for instance, social inequalities and\nenvironmental injustices do exist throughout the city, especially when\ncomparing the situation in the north to that of neighborhoods in the south of\nthe city. According to Agay-Shay, these inequalities were intensified when\npeople could only move within a 100-meter radius of their home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You were lucky if you live in a greener area or close to a park. If not, which is more often the case in the south than it is in the center or the north, quarantine can become very difficult and cause psychological effects and mental health issues like depression symptoms,&#8221; Agay-Shay concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/38260234505_cb6ffd408d_o-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2881\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/38260234505_cb6ffd408d_o-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/38260234505_cb6ffd408d_o-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/38260234505_cb6ffd408d_o-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/38260234505_cb6ffd408d_o-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/38260234505_cb6ffd408d_o-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>&#8220;During the COVID-19 quarantine, we all had to stay at home, and it&#8217;s important to remember how claustrophobic an experience that can be for someone who does not have a garden or a green space close to their home.\u201d Photo by kitchener.lord on Flickr<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>More\npublic spaces for the public<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Alon Zask, Senior Deputy Director-General of Natural Resources at the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP), urban nature and city parks, especially in metropolitan areas, are of crucial importance to the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe MoEP\nis currently putting a lot of effort and budget into conducting large-scale\nmunicipal surveys of all the natural sites in cities throughout the country,\u201d\nhe continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The aim of\nthe surveys is to establis the ecological status as well as the flora and fauna\nof the individual sites and to determine how they can be maintained and\npersevered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFollowing\nthat,\u201d Alon says, \u201cafter we conducted the survey and have more details about\nthe condition of the sites, including the vegetation and animal life, and how\nwe can preserve them, we want to work in order to make them more accessible to\nthe public,\u201d Zask says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That\nmeans no fences or gates and no construction on the sites themselves,&#8221; he\nadds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So far,\nsurveys have been carried out by The Ministry of Environmental Protection and\nthe Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel in more than 50 out of the\n250 municipalities in Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this context, Zask also emphasizes the importance of rehabilitating the many streams and especially coastal streams that can be found dotted all over the country as they are a natural retreat from the city and are easy to reach from virtually anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I\nwouldn&#8217;t go so far as calling the situation in the south of Tel Aviv an\nenvironmental injustice per se, rather a geographical issue. But it is\ndefinitely an issue that needs to be addressed, and that is one of the reasons\nwe are doing the surveys,&#8221; Zask explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Because\nonce you mapped all the sites with urban nature, you can go ahead and implement\nsteps that aim to make these places more accessible to the public, in both, the\nstronger socioeconomic areas and the poorer neighborhoods,&#8221; he continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition, Zask says that wealthier neighborhoods are often built-up with\nhigh-rise buildings, with little to no open space left for the public, whereas\nless affluent parts of the city have areas that could serve as public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The budget of the MoEP is very small, and so there are limits to what we can do. But that being said, once we have completed the surveys, our goal is to get all the municipalities to adopt the recommended changes and implement them into their future city planning to ensure the preservation of green spaces in the urban environment,&#8221; Zask concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This ZAVIT article was also published in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/jewishjournal.com\/commentary\/blogs\/318639\/public-spaces-and-mental-health-in-times-of-covid-19\/\">The Jewish Journal<\/a>&nbsp;on 07\/10\/2020.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new Israeli study published in May examines how short visits to the outdoor urban environment, compared to staying at &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":2887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,14,9],"tags":[],"acf":[],"post-meta-fields":{"_edit_lock":["1594545862:11"],"_thumbnail_id":["2887"],"_edit_last":["11"],"subtitle":["The global quarantine measures in the face of COVID-19 have been unprecedented. And while Israel is still struggling to prevent a second lockdown, city dwellers thirsty for the outdoors flock to the beaches and parks. What did COVID-19 teach us about the importance of public spaces in the city?"],"_subtitle":["field_59d3d36ea7fe1"],"_wpml_media_duplicate":["1"],"_wpml_media_featured":["1"],"_oembed_e63606d10a323b9df7a72b3b3078b49f":["<iframe title=\"Public Spaces and Mental Health in Times of COVID-19\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1O8zM32Gqls?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>"],"_oembed_time_e63606d10a323b9df7a72b3b3078b49f":["1594544019"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2870"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2892,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions\/2892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}