Health Disparities
Impact of Vacant Lots on Adolescent Neighborhood Perceptions and Mental Well-being Marina C. Jenkins* Marina Jenkins Jon Kawatachi Rebecca Skinner Beth Marshall Kristin Mmari
There are currently over 20,000 vacant lots across Baltimore City. Unmaintained, urban vacant lots have been found to impact adult mental well-being and local violence rates; however, little is known about impacts of adolescents. We aimed to compare adolescent perceptions about their neighborhood and mental health indicators between those who live near unkept vacant lot and those that did not.
A survey was conducted in 2022-23 among a geographically and socioeconomically representative sample of adolescents ages 13-18 residing in Baltimore. Variables included demographic characteristics, perceptions of neighborhood quality, and stressors: violence, safety and food insecurity. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was indicated with a binary indicator based on DSM-5 criteria. Our exposure was indicated by agreement with the statement “In my neighborhood, there are a lot of vacant lots that haven’t been cleaned.” We used chi-square tests of proportions to compare neighborhood perceptions, stressors, and PTSD, and a t-test was used to compare number of experiences with violence between exposure groups.
We analyzed a sample of 364 adolescent surveys, of whom 86.7% were African American, 49.2% were male and the mean age was 15.6 (SD=1.7). Among Baltimore adolescents, 40.3% reported living near unkept vacant lots. Adolescents who lived near vacant lots were more likely to report food insecurity, witness drug use and perceive their neighborhood to be dangerous, unclean, and have higher rates of crime (p<.05). Adolescents who lived near unkept lots reported more experiences with violence (Mean diff.=4.3, p<.01) and increased rate of PTSD which neared statistical significance (p=.06)
The presence of uncleaned vacant lots may be detrimental to youth perceptions of neighborhood quality and safety in urban settings and may impact well-being. Greening and maintenance of vacant lots may improve adolescent perceptions of their neighborhoods and promote thriving.