Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution
The mental health crisis poses a major challenge to global sustainable development. In response, the United Nations has launched an ambitious plan to “reshape the environment that affects mental health”. Clean toilets are an important measure of civilization, yet it is unclear whether they are helpi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Agriculture |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/128 |
| _version_ | 1797340212546764800 |
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| author | Ruohan Zhang Jialan Zhang Kuan Zhang Dingde Xu Yanbin Qi Xin Deng |
| author_facet | Ruohan Zhang Jialan Zhang Kuan Zhang Dingde Xu Yanbin Qi Xin Deng |
| author_sort | Ruohan Zhang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The mental health crisis poses a major challenge to global sustainable development. In response, the United Nations has launched an ambitious plan to “reshape the environment that affects mental health”. Clean toilets are an important measure of civilization, yet it is unclear whether they are helping to alleviate the global mental health crisis. Therefore, using data from a large sample of rural Chinese households and introducing an instrumental variables approach based on the IV-Tobit model to address endogeneity, this study quantitatively discusses that clean latrines have a positive effect on the mental health of farm households. The results showed the following: (1) 89.8% of Chinese rural households had clean toilets, while the average farm household depression index was 12.568; and (2) clean toilets helped to improve the mental health of farmers, which means that the depression index of farmers with clean toilets decreased by 66.9% compared to farmers without clean toilets. The findings of this study can inform the development of policies to mitigate the global mental health crisis and contribute to the resilience of global development. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:59:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4fc1274d39a5444ba304f87fdbaf5ec8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-0472 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:59:45Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Agriculture |
| spelling | doaj.art-4fc1274d39a5444ba304f87fdbaf5ec82024-01-29T13:40:39ZengMDPI AGAgriculture2077-04722024-01-0114112810.3390/agriculture14010128Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet RevolutionRuohan Zhang0Jialan Zhang1Kuan Zhang2Dingde Xu3Yanbin Qi4Xin Deng5College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, ChinaCollege of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, ChinaCollege of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, ChinaCollege of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, ChinaCollege of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, ChinaCollege of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, ChinaThe mental health crisis poses a major challenge to global sustainable development. In response, the United Nations has launched an ambitious plan to “reshape the environment that affects mental health”. Clean toilets are an important measure of civilization, yet it is unclear whether they are helping to alleviate the global mental health crisis. Therefore, using data from a large sample of rural Chinese households and introducing an instrumental variables approach based on the IV-Tobit model to address endogeneity, this study quantitatively discusses that clean latrines have a positive effect on the mental health of farm households. The results showed the following: (1) 89.8% of Chinese rural households had clean toilets, while the average farm household depression index was 12.568; and (2) clean toilets helped to improve the mental health of farmers, which means that the depression index of farmers with clean toilets decreased by 66.9% compared to farmers without clean toilets. The findings of this study can inform the development of policies to mitigate the global mental health crisis and contribute to the resilience of global development.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/128clean toiletsmental healthtoilet revolutionIV-Tobit modelChina rural |
| spellingShingle | Ruohan Zhang Jialan Zhang Kuan Zhang Dingde Xu Yanbin Qi Xin Deng Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution Agriculture clean toilets mental health toilet revolution IV-Tobit model China rural |
| title | Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution |
| title_full | Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution |
| title_fullStr | Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution |
| title_full_unstemmed | Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution |
| title_short | Do Clean Toilets Help Improve Farmers’ Mental Health? Empirical Evidence from China’s Rural Toilet Revolution |
| title_sort | do clean toilets help improve farmers mental health empirical evidence from china s rural toilet revolution |
| topic | clean toilets mental health toilet revolution IV-Tobit model China rural |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/128 |
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