Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MINDMAP (PROMOTING MENTAL WELLBEING IN THE AGEING URBAN POPULATION: DETERMINANTS, POLICIES AND INTERVENTIONS IN EUROPEAN CITIES)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-01-01 bis 2020-06-30
We brought together longitudinal studies across cities in Europe and Canada and enriched them with information on urban characteristics and policies. This enriched set of data allows us to unravel the causal pathways and multi-level interactions between the urban environment and the social, behavioural, psychosocial and biological determinants of mental health and cognitive function in older adults. Specifically, MINDMAP aimed to (a) assess the impact of the urban environment on the mental wellbeing and disorders associated with ageing, and estimate the extent to which exposure to specific urban environmental factors and policies explain differences in ageing-related mental and cognitive disorders both within as well as between cities, (b) assess the causal pathways and interactions between the urban environment and the individual factors affecting mental health and cognitive ageing in older adults, (c) use agent-based modelling to simulate the effect of urban environmental, prevention and care policies on the trajectories of mental health and cognitive ageing across cities in Europe. Our knowledge may significantly contribute to future-proof preventive strategies in urban settings favouring the mental dimension of healthy ageing, the reduction of the negative impact of mental disorders on co-morbidities, and maintaining cognitive ability in old age.
Annual project board meetings were organised, of which one was a online meeting after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Working group meetings were held on overarching themes, most intensively concerning the harmonisation of the data in the platform. Numerous bilateral meetings were held.
By the end of the project, approximately 50 peer-reviewed international publications were published from the project, and still many papers are under review or in preparation. A special issue of the Journal of Community Health and Epidemiology is devoted to the MINDMAP project.
MINDMAP has produced a substantial amount of new information on a theme that is probably even more important than it was at the start of the project: a healthy urban living environment for older persons. The data infrastructure realised in the project is an important legacy of the project, which allows much further work.