A geography of contaminated sites, mental health and wellbeing: The body, home, environment and state at Australian PFAS sites

verfasst von

Rupert Legg, Jason Prior, Jon Adams, Erica McIntyre

Abstract

Health geographers have long been interested in the connection between place and mental health, proposing that settings influence mental health and vice versa. Research on environmental contamination has tended to focus on the former part of this relationship, examining how the mental health and wellbeing of residents living nearby are affected by the contamination. There has been little investigation of the latter component: how mental health and wellbeing may shape place. This article seeks to explore how the mental health and wellbeing of residents living on or near environmental contamination may be both affected by and reproduced in place. It considers this in a case study of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in New South Wales, Australia, by drawing on interviews with residents. Focus is placed on examining how residents report psychological distress associated with the contamination and how this distress may permeate beyond the contaminated site to become enmeshed in other places at different scales, such as the body, home, local environment, and state. Ultimately, it is proposed that these places reproduce distress on their own and require just as much attention in addressing adverse psychological effects as the physical contamination itself.

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Technology Sydney

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Emotion, space and society

Band

44

Anzahl der Seiten

8

ISSN

1755-4586

Publikationsdatum

08.2022

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Experimentelle und kognitive Psychologie, Sozialpsychologie

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 3 – Gute Gesundheit und Wohlergehen

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2022.100910 (Zugang: Geschlossen)