Health Place. 2025 Nov 24;97:103568. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2025.103568. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Little is known about the predictors of loneliness in childhood and adolescence compared with late adulthood. Addressing the methodological limitations of recent studies on environment-loneliness associations, this study investigated the associations between a comprehensive list of built environment attributes in early life and longitudinal trajectories of loneliness from childhood to adolescence, considering together with demographic, personal, and social characteristics.
METHODS: Built environment attributes at baseline (9-10 years of age) and the subsequent 4-year trajectories of loneliness (i.e., no, transitory, and chronic loneliness) were extracted from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study dataset. Participants resided in the West (34.40 %), South (28.30 %), Midwest (20.40 %), and Northeast (16.90 %) Census Regions in USA. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression examined the associations between the built environment attributes and the three trajectories, weighted by lifetime exposure to the attributes and covariates.
FINDINGS: Among 8638 children (mean age = 9.48, 47.46 % female) across the 4-year observations, 70.13 % presented no loneliness, 27.44 % transitory loneliness, and 2.43 % chronic loneliness. Among all built environment attributes and covariates, fewer social services, higher lead risk, higher noise and residential density, more alcohol outlets, and greater distance from major roads differentiated adolescents with transitory loneliness from no loneliness, whereas non-environmental individual attributes of female sex, higher internalizing symptoms, and higher personality trait of behavioral inhibition differentiated those with chronic loneliness from no loneliness.
INTERPRETATION: Community support and urban planning should, on top of individualized assessment and interventions, be designed to encourage interactions between social groups within the physical spaces of cities, enhance the living environment, and address the social determinants of health for upholding child and adolescent mental health.
PMID:41289671 | DOI:10.1016/j.healthplace.2025.103568
