Walkable Cities, Healthier Minds?: A Geospatial Analysis of Depression Rates and Walkability in America

Keywords: Depression, Walkability, Urban Planning, Mental Health
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Walkability quantifies how facilitative an area is to walking, which impacts overall physical activity, social interaction, and resource access. Understanding walkability’s association with U.S. depression rates can reveal how urban design affects mental health, guiding policies to foster healthier communities. We used the National Walkability Index (EPA) census-tract level data as well as sourcing depression data from CDC PLACES. For the sake of computational speed, we randomly selected 41,761 census tracts from the 83,522 census tracts in the U.S. with depression data from across the United States. Initial exploratory univariate regression indicated a statistically significant but weak relationship (r² = 0.039, p < 0.00001), with tests indicating heteroskedasticity and non-normal residuals. A spatial lag model, incorporating a 50% spatial weight threshold, was used to account for non-independent spatial influences on depression scores. The spatial lag model identified a significant negative association between walkability and depression (p = 0.005, r² of 0.78). These results underscore the role of walkability in promoting mental health, suggesting that enhanced urban walkability could reduce depression rates. Further research should explore additional spatial factors that perhaps interact with walkability in influencing mental health.