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“They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood
BACKGROUND: The presence of urban rats in the neighbourhood environment may negatively impact the physical and mental health of residents. Our study sought to describe the experiences with, perceptions of, and feelings towards rats and rat control efforts among a group of disadvantaged urban residen...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604318/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31262276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7202-6 |
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author | Byers, Kaylee A. Cox, Susan M. Lam, Raymond Himsworth, Chelsea G. |
author_facet | Byers, Kaylee A. Cox, Susan M. Lam, Raymond Himsworth, Chelsea G. |
author_sort | Byers, Kaylee A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The presence of urban rats in the neighbourhood environment may negatively impact the physical and mental health of residents. Our study sought to describe the experiences with, perceptions of, and feelings towards rats and rat control efforts among a group of disadvantaged urban residents in Vancouver, Canada. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were held with 20 members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) recruited by VANDU staff. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Participants reported daily sightings of rats and close contact during encounters. Participants generally disliked encountering rats, raising issues of health and safety for themselves and the community due to the belief that rats carry disease. Fear of rats was common, and in some cases resulted in avoidance of rats. Effects of rats on participants were particularly pronounced for those living with rats in the home or for homeless participants who described impacts on sleep due to the sounds made by rats. Although rats were viewed as more problematic in their neighbourhood than elsewhere in Vancouver, participants believed there to be a lack of neighbourhood-level control initiatives that angered and disheartened participants. In combination with other community-level concerns (e.g., housing quality and availability), the presence of rats was viewed by some to align with a general disregard for the community and its residents. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that the presence of rats in urban centres may have several consequences on the physical and mental health of residents living in close contact with them. These effects may be exacerbated with continued contact with rats and when residents perceive a lack of initiative to control rats in their neighbourhood. As such, research and policies aimed at mitigating the health risks posed by rats should extend beyond disease-related risk and incorporate diverse health outcomes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7202-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6604318 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66043182019-07-12 “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood Byers, Kaylee A. Cox, Susan M. Lam, Raymond Himsworth, Chelsea G. BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: The presence of urban rats in the neighbourhood environment may negatively impact the physical and mental health of residents. Our study sought to describe the experiences with, perceptions of, and feelings towards rats and rat control efforts among a group of disadvantaged urban residents in Vancouver, Canada. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were held with 20 members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) recruited by VANDU staff. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Participants reported daily sightings of rats and close contact during encounters. Participants generally disliked encountering rats, raising issues of health and safety for themselves and the community due to the belief that rats carry disease. Fear of rats was common, and in some cases resulted in avoidance of rats. Effects of rats on participants were particularly pronounced for those living with rats in the home or for homeless participants who described impacts on sleep due to the sounds made by rats. Although rats were viewed as more problematic in their neighbourhood than elsewhere in Vancouver, participants believed there to be a lack of neighbourhood-level control initiatives that angered and disheartened participants. In combination with other community-level concerns (e.g., housing quality and availability), the presence of rats was viewed by some to align with a general disregard for the community and its residents. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that the presence of rats in urban centres may have several consequences on the physical and mental health of residents living in close contact with them. These effects may be exacerbated with continued contact with rats and when residents perceive a lack of initiative to control rats in their neighbourhood. As such, research and policies aimed at mitigating the health risks posed by rats should extend beyond disease-related risk and incorporate diverse health outcomes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7202-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6604318/ /pubmed/31262276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7202-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Byers, Kaylee A. Cox, Susan M. Lam, Raymond Himsworth, Chelsea G. “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
title | “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
title_full | “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
title_fullStr | “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
title_full_unstemmed | “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
title_short | “They’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
title_sort | “they’re always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604318/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31262276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7202-6 |
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