Project description
Analysing inequalities in children’s mental health
Most European children live in cities exposed to pollution, traffic noise and lack of natural free space. Also, mental health disorders affect about 20 % of children. Children from lower socioeconomic circumstances (SECs) backgrounds are three times more vulnerable to mental health problems. Despite growing concern, how urban and social stressors affect inequalities in child mental health has yet to be explained. The EU-funded URBINEX project will provide a novel methodology in an epidemiological analysis of the data from over 200 000 children across 16 EU cities elucidating relations between SECs, urban stressors and children’s mental health to enable a change in EU mental health policies and reduce inequalities.
Objective
Mental health disorders are one of the primary sources of ill health for young people, affecting up to 20% of children and adolescents worldwide. Moreover, stark social inequalities in children’s mental health exist, with those from more disadvantaged backgrounds being up to three times more likely to experience mental health problems than those more privileged.
Our understanding of the mechanisms through which childhood socio-economic circumstances (SEC) affect children’s mental health is incomplete. With three quarters of EU citizens now living in cities, attention is turning to the effects of environmental stressors such as ambient air pollution, traffic noise, and natural space on children’s development. In many cities, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds are disproportionately exposed to more harmful aspects of the urban environment. However, we do not know to what extent greater exposure or vulnerability to these stressors contributes to social inequalities in child mental health.
URBINEX will undertake epidemiological analysis of data from over 200,000 children across 16 EU cities using the recently established EU Child Cohort Network. Cutting-edge methods in causal inference and life course epidemiology will be applied to decompose the relationship between SEC, exposure to environmental stressors and children’s mental health. The key objectives are to (i) use multi-level models to describe inequalities in mental health trajectories across childhood, (ii) use counterfactual mediation to test whether variation in exposure to urban environmental stressors mediates the relationship between SEC and mental health, and (iii) explore whether SEC and environmental stressors interact to confer additional vulnerability to mental health problems.
URBINEX has the potential to inform EU policies to bring structural changes to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals in reducing health inequalities, improving mental health and building sustainable cities.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health epidemiology
- social sciences sociology social issues social inequalities
- engineering and technology environmental engineering air pollution engineering
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences environmental sciences pollution
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1165 KOBENHAVN
Denmark
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.