Associations Between Perceived Environmental Pollution and Mental Health in Middle-Aged and Older Adults in East Asia

Given the widely used objective measures of environmental pollution in previous research, this study investigated subjective measures in relation to mental health among middle-aged and older adults in three East Asian countries—China, Japan, and South Korea. The samples from the 2010 East Asian Social Survey included 2502 Chinese, 1794 Japanese, and 871 South Korean adults aged 40 and older. Linear regression models were used to examine the associations between mental health measure (SF-12) and 4 perceived environmental pollution indicators (ie, air, water, noise, and pollution index). Greater perceived pollution indicators, as well as the perceived pollution index, were associated with poorer mental health, even after adjusting for covariates in all three countries. Although results need to be further verified in future research, national-level efforts to improve perceptions of environmental pollution may be useful to enhance the mental health of East Asian middle-aged and older adults.