I’m glad you are doing an article of this kind. Lots of people have
written articles about clutter but they lack any references and are of
generally poor quality. There are a myriad of lightweight articles
and self-help books stating that clutter is detrimental to health, but
they seem to be very touch-feely, talking about how clutter affects
one’s state of mind in general. I could find none that measurably
prove that clutter affects one’s health/and or mental health.
I assume you need academic information. Finding real evidence will
take more than just a quick look via the internet. I would suggest
that perhaps a greater investment than $4.50 would be necessary for a
researcher to be able to spend the appropriate time required on this
topic. Or perhaps a trip to a medical library would be your next
step.
If you are looking at clutter from the angle of health care provision
I would certainly recommend you look at the health economics/time
wasting angle and also the impairment of decision making when there is
too much clutter. Make sure you define “clutter” eg. physical mess,
or too much information etc.
What I did find in the time I could spare was…
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS-HEALTH GRADIENT
A murky area indeed, and difficult to draw conclusions from a web of
interrelated issues, but this research used a “scale that relied on
raters’ assessments of cleanliness/clutter” etc. It talked about the
“socioeconomic status-health gradient” saying that it “is inversely
correlated with exposure to suboptimal environmental conditions. By
environmental conditions we mean the physical properties of the
ambient and immediate surroundings ……including pollutants, toxins,
noise, crowding as well as exposure to settings such as neighborhoods,
housing, schools and work environments. We will also briefly cite
evidence that each of these environmental factors, in turn, is linked
to health.”
http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Social%20Environment/notebook/suboptimalEnv.html
PERCEPTION
Talking about visual clutter: “Multiple representations of objects in
our visual field are constantly competing with each other for our
brain's limited visual processing capacity. What's more, they mutually
cancel each other out; visual clutter actually suppresses the brain's
responsiveness.” And “focused attention enhanced the end-of-circuit
responses to simultaneously presented stimuli more strongly than to
sequentially presented stimuli. "Thus, the suppressive interactions
were partially canceled-out by attention,”
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/oct98/nimh-01.htm
National institutes of Health Press Release
PERSONALITY TRAITS
Clues In All That Clutter: Studys Shows Person's Space Gives Clues
About Personality Traits
http://www.thebakersfieldchannel.com/Health/1569566/detail.html
Researchers looked at 94 offices and 83 student bedrooms. Other
personality traits studied were extroversion, agreeableness and
emotional stability.
For more information, call the University of Texas Psychology
Department at (512) 471-1628 or contact Gosling at
gosling@psy.utexas.edu
HOARDERS AND HOARDING
I came across lots of material that discussed clutter as a symptom of
poor mental health, rather than as a cause of poor mental health.
“Hoarding or cluttering may sometimes be a sign of a mental illness,
such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, dementia, or
paranoid schizophrenia.” and “Why is hoarding dangerous? Hoarding
represents a form of self-neglect, leading to health and safety risks.
The hoarder subjects himself to fire and disease hazards, as well as
the possibility of falls. Neighbors may become aware of strong odors
and an increased need for vector control” and “the hoarder may be
unable to distinguish trash from treasure. Hoarders often report a
lifetime of difficulty making decisions…”
http://www.vitalco.net/messanger/W2002-Hoarding.htm
Chaos And Clutter: When Hoarding Becomes a Community Concern By
Roberta L. Wertenberg
“A well-defined program of cognitive-behavioral therapy helps reduce
acquisition behavior and improves confidence, problem recognition,
decisiveness, and organization among compulsive hoarders”
and “Compulsive hoarding is characterized by acquiring and failing to
discard possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value. The
acquisition leads to cluttered living spaces and significant distress
or impairment in functioning.”
and “Hoarders with fear-based attachments see their possessions as
symbols of safety; without their possessions, they may feel
vulnerable. In hoarders with grief-based attachments, thoughts of
getting rid of possessions promote strong feelings of grief, as though
losing possessions is like losing a friend. Hoarders with guilt-based
attachments may feel that they are responsible for ensuring that items
are not wasted. Those with sentimentally based attachments may feel
that if they discard too many things, there will be little left of
themselves. These types of hoarders may feel their belongings are
extensions of themselves”.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Can Cut Compulsive Hoarding. ANNE
JACOBSON. Clinical Psychiatry News. June 2001 v29 i6 p52.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 International Medical News Group
http://nasw.org/users/ajacobson/IMNG/CPN_ADAA_hoarding_htm.html
FALLS IN THE ELDERLY
There is a lot of material regarding falls in the elderly. Some say
that “just having things out of place can cause falls. When objects
are out of their normal place, they can be overlooked and tripped
over.”
Although I don’t believe this article is of sufficient academic
standard for your needs.
http://www.nursing.wright.edu/practice/falls/
On the same topic of clutter and falls in the elderly the other (more
substantiated) angle suggests that “overall health is more important
in preventing a fall than whether or not you clean up the clutter”
This refers to factors such as medication, eye prescriptions, balance
etc…
To Prevent Falls, Focus on Health, Not Clutter.
Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter. Feb 2001 v18 i12 p2.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 W.H. White Publications, Inc.
“none of these hazards was associated with an increased risk of
falling after controlling for other potentially confounding factors.”
Home environmental hazards and the risk of fall injury events among
community-dwelling older persons.
Richard W. Sattin, Juan G. Rodriguez, Carolee A. DeVito, Phyllis A.
Wingo. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. June 1998 v46 n6
p669(8).
I accessed these last two articles (and there are many more to be
found there) via an online database called the “Health and Wellness
Resource Centre”, If you cannot access it via your own library, my
library is http://www.monlib.vic.gov.au/online.html although you
would have to live in Victoria, Australia to join, and use your
library barcode as a password. Click on “Gulliver”. Click on “Health
and wellness”. I can email these two articles to any email address if
you wish to put your email address in a question clarification, but I
can’t quote more here due to copyright regulations.
Search Strategy: I searched on clutter health
Other Search terms used
Google: clutter health research
Google Answers gives you great value for $4.50 I would say! Good luck
with your article :) |
