How Environmental Perception influence Depression and Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Social Interaction

Background: With the economic and social transformations, depression and anxiety disorders are presenting an increasingly common trend globally, becoming a widely addressed issue in mental health. Research has shown that livable natural environments and high-quality social interactions can influence residents’ psychological health and happiness. However, Studies on Whether residents’ perception of the environment affects depression and anxiety, and the underlying mechanisms are remained limited. Methods: This study relies on Health Life Satisfaction Survey of Yangtze River Phase II Delta (HLSSYRD II), collected during waves spanning 2021 and 2023. The primary objective is to examine the relationship between environmental perception, social interaction, and degree of depression and anxiety of individuals. Linear mixed-effects models were used to analyze the data. Results: A total of 1752 observations were included in this paper. The “Depression and Anxiety (HAD)” variable has a mean score of 26.01 (SE = 6.99), with “Depression” scoring at 13.15 (SE = 3.78) and “Anxiety” scoring at 12.85 (SE = 3.75) among individuals in YRDC. There is a strong negative correlation between depression, anxiety and environmental perception (β = -0.187, SE = 0.03, p < 0.001; β = -0.152, SE = 0.03, p < 0.001). Moreover, there was significant mediating effects of social interaction in the association between environmental perception and HAD. In addition, gender, chronic disease，marital status, occupation, education level, monthly personal income were associated with depression and anxiety. Conclusions: Individuals with worse environmental perception have more possibility to develop depressive and anxiety symptoms than those with better environmental perception YRDC, and such a relationship can be partly mediated by social interaction.