Living Environments and Mental Health: the environMAP database
Renner, P.; Polemiti, E.; Jentsch, M.; Banks, J. R.; Cleff, D.; Siehl, S.; Dallavalle, M.; Lett, T.; Buck, C.; Castell, S.; Frost, J.; Grabe, H.; Keil, T.; Harth, V.; Kettlitz, R.; Krist, L.; Leitzmann, M.; Mikolajczyk, R.; Naaouf, N.; Obi, N.; Peters, A.; Schneider, A.; Wolf, K.; Nees, F.; Twardziok, S. O.; Marquand, A.; Hese, S.; Schepanski, K.; Schumann, G.; environMENTAL consortium,
Show abstract
Environmental exposures are increasingly examined in relation to mental health, yet large-scale epidemiological analyses remain constrained by fragmented geospatial data, heterogeneous spatial and temporal resolutions, and privacy-preserving linkage requirements, limiting systematic investigation of multiple environmental domains at the population level. We present environMAP, a harmonised set of analysis-ready environmental exposure layers derived from open, global sources. environMAP spans the built environment, green and blue spaces, light exposure (solar radiation and night-time light), terrain, weather and extremes, and air pollution. We document data provenance, spatial buffers, preprocessing, projection alignment, and metadata, and provide a reproducible workflow for privacy-preserving linkage to cohort residential locations. To demonstrate utility, we linked environMAP to >200,000 adults in the German National Cohort (NAKO) and summarised self-reported lifetime doctor-diagnosed depression across exposure gradients using sex-stratified descriptive analyses. Gradients were interpretable and broadly consistent with prior evidence, supporting feasibility, scalability, and hypothesis generation. The framework is adaptable to other outcomes, cohorts, and regions.
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