Study of Life Quality Mental Indices in the Communities (Case Study: District 18 of Tehran)
Soheila Halajian
1
(
teacher
)
Farah Habib
2
(
استاد دانشگاه آزاد واحد علوم تحقیقات
)
Keywords: " Environmental quality", " Life quality", " Mental dimensions", "Sustainable Development", "District 18".,
Abstract :
Quality of life as one of the basic concepts in the studies of sustainable development is used in various sciences in objective and subjective aspects and has recently entered the Urban Development debates, too. Studies related to this concept differ in several aspects such as the scale of study, scopes, and methods of measurement used in the assessment of the quality of life, as different methods have been used for the study of the life quality in urban districts. However, no comprehensive framework has yet been presented for the study of life quality based on physical, local and social indices. On the other hand, the quality of life is often measured by using subjective and objective indices, and rarely by using them both. Subjective indices are obtained from surveys of perceptions, evaluations and life satisfaction of urban residents, while objective indices are related to observable facts often obtained from secondary data. In addition, theories and empirical studies of quality of life in its present form have mainly originated from Western societies. The studies in developing countries are significantly low. Similarly, major factors affecting the life quality in developing countries have not been clearly identified. Many attempts have been made in the past three decades to measure the quality of life around the world. Researchers and different institutions have proposed various indices, but it seems that the advantages and disadvantages of each of these indices have not been evaluated by a certain method. Objective indices are measured on the basis of abundance or physical quantities such as income, but subjective indices are measured qualitatively based on psychological responses such as job satisfaction and happiness. Traditionally, in recent past, GDP was used as the only reliable indicator of well-being and economic development. However, there is a broad consensus that the increase in GDP does not necessarily improve the life quality. At present, one of the measurements of life quality has been the Human Development Index used by the United Nations since 1990 which is based on three factors of life expectancy at birth, academic success and real per capita GDP. In this study, we have tried to define the quality of life in the four neighborhoods of HosseiniFerdos, Tolidarou, Behdasht and North Valiasr by using descriptive and analytical methods to present a conceptual model. Indices used for the measurement of the life quality include the quality of the physical environment, quality of the economic environment, quality of the social environment and the quality of communication and transportation. Library documents and field methods were used to collect data based on the answers given to the questions in the questionnaires by 390 people age 16 to 65 in the above-mentioned neighborhoods selected through classification. Dimensions considered in this study are based on the American vision of mental aspects, and SPSS and Amos software were used for the analysis of data. The results indicate that the rate of mental quality in these neighborhoods are below average and it shows the life quality in these areas.