Waste Cooking Oil Management towards Human Health - An Analysis

Abstract

Cooking oil is compulsory to prepare the food. Nevertheless, repeatedly used cooking oil will impact to human health. This research study conducted to determine cafeterias operators’ perception in waste cooking oil management towards human health. Quantitative approach with questionnaire method applied, with targeting 20 out of 32 cafeterias operators in sampling size due to willingly in cooperation. Two categorized are formatted in collecting the information, namely respondent’s demographic profile and cafeterias operators’ perception in waste cooking oil management towards human health. Results indicated frequency of oil being used repeatedly in one day for only one time are two cafeterias, while using the oil for three times are 3 cafeterias, and others are stay for two time in repeating using cooking oil. Lastly, the level of knowledge of respondents towards human health indicate the answer for ‘yes’ are 5 cafeterias, while answering ‘no’ are 5 cafeterias, and others cafeterias operators stay for answer ‘not sure’. Conclusion, cafeterias operators are compulsory to follow the guidelines provided by university, which concerned on environmental perspective that prevention from continuously contaminated the water quality. Apart from that, the guidelines are also highlighted about health food, where majority cafeterias operators should not repeatedly use cooking oil because the oil is already considered as waste cooking oil. The negatively impact from repeatedly used cooking oil not only bring human health decrease, but also reduce the quality of students live in continue study in university.

Keywords: Waste Cooking Oil, Human Health, Quality Life, Repeatedly

Citation of Article:

Noor, N.A.M., & Hua, A.K. (2018). Waste Cooking Oil Management towards Human Health-An Analysis. Shodhshauryam, International Scientific Refereed Research Journal, 1(1), 35-38.

INTRODUCTION

Cooking oil is essential during preparation of food. Common types of cooking oil used in Malaysia country are palm oil, peanut oil, corn oil, and sunflower oil. Cooking oil is used as a heat-transfer medium in frying to generate nicely cooked foods. Cooking oil is typically liquid, although some oils that contain saturated fat such as coconut oil, palm oil and palm kernel oil are solid at room temperature. Malaysia is among top three exporter of palm oil in the world, where 40% of palm oil are used for cooking oil, margarine, specialty fats and oleochemiclas. Generally, cooking oil is made from palm oil. The main producer for cooking oil is restaurants, food stalls, night market as well as cafeteria. According to statistic, Malaysia restaurants are the highest user for cooking oil especially restaurants, which in-turn producing larger volume of used cooking oil generated per day (Akademi Science Government, 2012). Estimation for cooking oil in Malaysia was reported 7000 tons a month in 2010 (Akademi Science Government, 2012).

The Figure 1 showed consumption versus allocation of cooking oil in 2010. From the graph indicate highest consumption of cooking oil is on January and on Ramadhan month with more than 73, 000 000 tons. Although the fasting month is carry out within the month, but majority restaurant, hotel night market or even ‘Bazar Ramadhan’ are open during evening to provide various foods, which become the main reason to increase the graph in consumption of cooking oil. On the other hands, Akademi Science Government (2012) stated that there is top 8 Malaysian favorite food compulsory needed cooking oil for preparation, which can be showed in Table 1.

It was reported that waste cooking oil is widely produced all over the world (Kulkarni and Dalai, 2005). Improper waste management of cooking oil leads to discharge of waste cooking oil to environment and this will effect environment and bring dangerous to human health. The increasing production of waste cooking oil from household or food industrial source is growing problem in Malaysia. The waste cooking oil is regularly poured down directly to sink or drain which resulting the problems to wastewater treatment plants. Fat, oil and grease cause major problems to drain and sewers. When the cooking oil waste is discarded into the kitchen sinks or drains, it will cause blockage. Indirectly, this action will cause water pollution when the wastes cooking oil are entering the streams and rivers. Oils and grease may cause the clogging of the pipes because they stick to the inner walls and reduce the diameter of the sewer pipes. Sewage spills will occur when the layer is thicker. Afterwards, the worst condition may happen when it’s disrupts normal operations sue to the oil reaches the wastewater treatment plants and both maintenance costs and the rates to be paid for the purification of the water will increase (Payri et al., 2004).

Apart from that, repeatedly used of cooking oil can cause adverse effect to the human health. However, this practice becomes common among Malaysian without concerned and aware about the negativity of waste cooking oil can harm the human health (Kubow, 1992). Many local communities are not aware the issues due to lack information and knowledge of waste cooking oil management especially the food outlet business operators. Although the benefits of waste cooking oil to be recycled several times that can contribute the potential as value-added products such as biodiesel, lubricants, biopolymers or soap, however, the human body could not ‘accept’ and bring harm to healthy. Therefore, drastic action towards awareness must be taken to overcome possibility harming human health. This research study carried out to determine cafeterias operators’ perception in waste cooking oil management towards human health.

METHODOLOGY

This study concentrates on one of the government’s university in Malaysia. The total cafeterias that carry out the business are 39. Fortunately, only 20 cafeterias are willing to provide the information for this study. In collecting data, quantitative approach with questionnaire methods is applied by distributing the form to 20 sampling size. The questionnaire only divided into two categories, namely (1) respondent’s demographic profile, and (2) respondent’s perception in waste cooking oil management towards human health.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1 shows respondent’s demographic profile. In gender, female are the highest rating with 55 respondents while male are 25 respondents. In age, 21 to 30 are the highest respondents with 29, continue by 31 to 40 with 28 respondents, 41 to 50 with 14 respondents, and lowest are more than 51 with 9 respondents. Next, majority respondents are working there are non-owner with 57 people while owner only 23 people. Lastly, most of the respondents are only having the education level until primary school with 48 respondents, continue with secondary school with 19 respondents, pra-university level are 8 respondents, and the least are university level with 5 respondents.

Meanwhile, respondent’s perception in waste cooking oil management towards human health can be involve with method disposal of waste cooking oil, frequency of oil being used repeatedly in one day, and level of knowledge of respondents towards human health. In method disposal of waste cooking oil, majority cafeterias operators choose to thrown into sink without having any treatment, which involve with college 5 (1,2,3), college 12 (4), college 7, and food court (2,3,4,5); continue by thrown with normal waste which having primary treatment are college 12 (3,5), college 11 (1,2,3), food court 1, and Academy of Islamic Study. Lastly, only minority cafeterias operators like college 12 2, Faculty of Science, and Student Complex are choose to sell the waste cooking oil to the relevant parties for further action. Continuously, frequency of oil being used repeatedly in one day stated college 5 (1) and Faculty of Science are using the oil for one time, while college 12 (3), college 7, and Food Court 4 using the oil for three times, and others are stay for two time in repeating using cooking oil. Lastly, the level of knowledge of respondents towards human health indicate the answer for ‘yes’ are college 5 (1), college 12 (4), Faculty of Science, Academy of Islamic Study, and Student Complex; while answering ‘no’ are college 5 (2 and 3), college 11 (2), college 7, and Food Court 4; and others cafeterias operators stay for answer ‘not sure’.

CONCLUSION

Cafeterias operators are compulsory to follow the guidelines provided by university, which concerned on environmental perspective that prevention from continuously contaminated the water quality. Apart from that, the guidelines are also highlighted about health food, where majority cafeterias operators should not repeatedly use cooking oil because the oil is already considered as waste cooking oil. The negatively impact from repeatedly used cooking oil not only bring human health decrease, but also reduce the quality of students live in continue study in university.

REFERENCES

[1] Akademi Science Government (2012). Prioritizing Policy Options to Prevent Obesity : Cooking Oil Subsidy. Retrieved from www.moh.gov.my

[2] Kubow S. (1992). Routes of formation and toxic consequences of lipid oxidation products in foods. Free Radic Biol Med 12(1): 63-81.

[3] Kulkarni, M. G. & Dalai, A. K. (2006). Waste cooking oil-an economical source for biodiesel: A review. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res, (45): 2901-2913.

[4] Payri, F., Macia'n, V., Arregle, J., Tormos, B., (2004). Heavy-duty diesel engine performance and emission measurements for biodiesel (from cooking oil) blends used in the ECOBUS Projet. SAE paper 05-01 -2205.

How possible the Coastal Erosion and Coastal Deposition to Influenced on the Life Quality of Kemeruk Residents? A Structure Equation Model Study

Abstract

Coastal erosion is a natural process that breakdown the rock and the sediments at the shoreline, which causing the economic loss, ecological damage, and societal problems. This study investigates the coastal erosion and deposition that occur in Kemeruk residents. In-depth literature reviews were conducted to gather information of the coastal erosion and deposition that affect the human life, as well as adaptation approach in reducing the disaster. Through the reviews, eight domains of coastal erosion and deposition model are emerged from the study. The model was further validated with a quantitative survey study involving 83 residents that settled at Kemeruk villages. The findings established model for coastal erosion and deposition which focuses at Kemeruk villages.

Keywords: literature reviews, adaptation, economic loss, societal problems

Citations for Article:

Jaafar, S. N., Yusoff, M. M., Hua, A. K., & Ping, O. W. (2018). How possible the Coastal Erosion and Coastal Deposition to Influenced on the Life Quality of Kemeruk Residents? A Structure Equation Model Study. International Journal of Academic Research in Environment and Geography, 5(1), 59-69.

INTRODUCTION

Global climate change and sea level rise became the world issues to witnessing of various disasters in harming the human life. According to IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 expressed the sea level is rising between the past (1980-1999) to the present (2090-2099) century about 0.35m (0.23m to 0.47m) for the AIB scenario (IPCC, 2007). This matter is supported by Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) that reported the sea level would likely to increase as much as 1.4m by the end of this century (SCAR, 2010). Due to this report, United States suspected the sea level to rise about 2.0-3.0 mm/year along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts (USEPA, 2010). Western Japan is also expecting the sea level to be as high as 17cm/century in western Kyushu (Sin-Iti et al, 2008). The main factors to cause rising sea level involved with melting of glaciers in lower latitudes (alpine glaciers), subsidence of continental shelves due to the recent arrival of the water mass after the last glacial epoch, and thermal expansion of the surface layers of the oceans due to atmospheric heating (Pilkey et al, 2017). The consequences of sea level rise include flooding, salt-water intrusion, as well as increased the rate of coastal erosion, especially involved with storm waves. Since coastal erosion are direct causes of major problem to human, therefore, this study conducted to determine possible coastal erosion and deposition would influenced the quality life of residents that settled near to the beaches.

Literature Review

Coastal erosion can be defined as the process of wearing away material from a coastal profile due to imbalance in the supply and export of material from a certain sections (Marchand, 2010). Specifically, coastal erosion is considered as natural process that breakdown the rock and the sediments at the shoreline, which above and below the water surface (Arnott and Ollerhead, 2011). In other words, these event is occur due to a result of the action of waves, tidal action, wind, storm surge, ice, rain, and surface runoff. Statistically, the rate of erosion can be expressed in volume/length/time, example in m³/m/year, but erosion rate is often used in m/year (Mangor, 2004). Generally, coastal erosion become major issues in hunting the human, especially causing the economic loss, ecological damage, and societal problems (Marchand, 2010). For example, loss of property, infrastructure and beach width could cause billion of US dollar worth of economic damage, loss of valuable coastal habitat, significant with management issues, as well as the quality life that involved with human healthy level.

To avoid coastal erosion continuously impact the human, several suggestion on adaptation concept through appropriate research study had been conducted. According to Arnott and Ollerhead (2011) stated that three main component of adaptation can be applied in coastal erosion, namely land use zoning, engineering approaches, and slope stability. Meanwhile, the State of Oregon through the Emergency Management Plan Report in 2012 suggested education program as well as engineering solution by having soft and hard stabilization in reducing the landslide. The report also highlight several strategies include vegetation management, drainage controls, slope regrading, reinforcing structures, and surface fixing. A study conducted by Hegde (2010) is agrees to have mitigation program through implementing green belts, artificial reefs, geotextiles, zoning, setback limits, retreat (which concern on relocations, abandonment, and demolition of the structures situated along the coastal zone). Nevertheless, he also stressed that the suggestion should properly evaluated before adopted and implemented, especially having constraints on economic, environmental, social legal, etc., just to name a few.

Several opinion above are totally agreed by Federal Department of Town and Country Planning Malaysia, which also suggests on adaptation of coastal erosion should be carry out by having the beach reclamation, coastal protection by plants, dune restoration, as well as formation and maintenance (JPBD, 2010). Therefore, a part of coastal erosion that effectively impacts the quality of human life through destruction on healthy and property, therefore, adaptation concept towards coastal erosion and deposition plays an important role in reducing the negative effect to the human. So, this study conducted to investigate and to develop a model based on coastal erosion and deposition in Kemeruk residents, Malaysia.


METHODS

Establishing a Model of Coastal Erosion and Deposition based on Domain Design

Based on literature review conducted, the result indicate 8 domains of coastal erosion and deposition model, which is adaptation, coastal deposition, coastal erosion, erosion effect, education factor, health characteristic, house physical characteristic, and quality of life factor. These domains are important to determine possibility of coastal erosion and deposition model that emerged from review study can be adapted, implemented, and reassessed according to the researcher’s need (Creswell, 2005). Therefore, the model is required to further validate with quantitative survey study involving 83 local residents that experienced exposure to the coastal impacts.

Participants

Quantitative survey data were collected from 83 residents that settled adjacent to the coastal. Majority participants involved is male (n=49, 59%), followed by female (n=34, 41%). Most of the residents are Malay, which having the ages between 41 to 50 are 34 people (41%), followed by 51 to 60 with 24 people (29%) and 31 to 40 with 12 people (15%). In term of education level, most residents are studied until secondary school with 52% (n=43), 24% (n=20) in primary school and 12% (n=10) in pre-university level. Majority participants are married status (n=62, 75%) that working as fisherman (n=20, 24%), housewife (n=17, 21%), and self-employed (n=16, 19%), which settled for 11 to 20 years with 21 people (25%), 41 to 50 years with 14 people (17%), and 21 to 30 year with 12 people (15%).

Survey Questionnaire

The survey questionnaire used in this study consisted of two sections that correspond to the demographic details and eight main variables in the coastal erosion and deposition model generated from the review study. There were total of 39 items. The items were created based on the data of each theme generated from the review study. The items used a categorical scale of measurement ranging from 1 to 5, the Likert type scale with ‘1’ indicate ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘5’ indicate ‘strongly agree’.

Data Analysis

For testing the validity and reliability of the model, PLS-SEM analysis was performed in two stages. First, the validity (construct validity and discriminant validity) and reliability (composite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability) of the variables (the eight themes) were examined to ensure that the items validly and reliably represented the concepts of the eight variables in the model. Secondly is the relationships among the variables were identified and reported.


RESULTS

PLS-SEM is a non-parametric model testing analysis that does not require the data of the items involved in the analysis are normally distributed. However, the validity and reliability of the variables in the model should be established prior to examination of the relationship among the variables. This is to ensure that the eight variables are validly and reliably represented by their indicators, which are the instrument items. In PLS-SEM analysis, the eight variables are latent variables that are reflectively represented by their indicators. The convergent validity of a variable is achieved when the loadings of the items for each variable are (i) greater than 0.5 for the loadings of each individual item, and (ii) the average variance extracted (AVE) for the variable being greater than 0.5 (Hair et al, 2016). On the other hands, the variables are considered reliable when both values of Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliabilities are greater than 0.7 to address the variable is achieved (Hair et al, 2016). Table 1 showing the validity and reliability analysis of eight variables and the results are achieved the validity and reliability analysis.

The discriminant validity of a construct is achieved when inter-correlations among the variables in the model are smaller than 0.9. The implication is that the variables are independent to one another and no overlapping of concepts is found. Multi-collinearity causes overlapping of concepts among the variables in a model. This problem exists in model testing due to extremely strong inter-correlations (r≥0.9) between variables in the model (Bryne, 2010). The results in table 2 show that the inter-correlation coefficients among all of the variables were less than 0.9. The variables are free of multi-collinearity problems, and therefore the discriminant validity of the variables for the model is achieved.

The Final Model

PLS-SEM analysis using SMART PLS was performed to establish the relationship among the variables in the model. SMART PLS is one of the latest software applications that enable researchers to accurately and effectively model and analyze inter-relationships among latent variables that have multiple indicators (Hair et al, 2016). Specifically, the SMART PLS is able to multiple equations of the correlational and causal relationships in a model are computed simultaneously. It enables researchers to support their theories by extending the standard multivariate analytical methodology, which includes regression, factor analysis and analysis of variance.

The final model resulted in Figure 2 consists of coastal erosion and deposition with its six core factors. In other words, coastal erosion is directly influenced by the education factor and quality of life factors; and indirectly influenced by adaptation factors. Meanwhile, coastal deposition is influenced by both factors of education and quality of life. The data in Table 3 indicate that the factors contribute 85.6% of coastal erosion (R²=0.856) and 71.4% of coastal deposition (R²=0.714).

Among the three factors, education factor (β=0.419, p<0.001) is the main factor to influenced the adaptation, followed by quality of life (β=0.277, p<0.001) and house physical characteristic (β=0.318, p<0.001). Simultaneously, the main influenced to health characteristic in three factors are erosion effect (β=0.620, p<0.001), continued by quality of life (β=0.197, p<0.001) and education factor (β=0.227, p<0.001). On the other hands, health characteristic (β=0.683, p<0.001) and adaptation (β=0.306, p<0.001) are subjected to directly influenced the coastal erosion. Meanwhile, in coastal deposition, the factor to influenced is health characteristic (β=0.555, p<0.001) and house physical characteristic (β=0.154, p<0.01); and in house physical characteristic, the factor to influenced is quality of life (β=0.246, p<0.001) and adaptation (β=0. 510, p<0.001). Lastly, erosion effect is suspected to have directly influenced by adaptation (β=0.215, p<0.001).

The sub-models of coastal erosion and deposition model are presented in Table 4. These sub-models are the basics of the coastal erosion and deposition model focuses in Kemeruk residential area.

DISCUSSIONS

According to Table 4, ten criteria from the study can be used in defining the model of coastal erosion in Kemeruk residential area. Based on coastal erosion as dependent variable, the disaster occur could bring various destruction to house physical characteristic and health characteristic, which could influenced the quality of life factor. For example, coastal erosion happen due to extreme windy, strong beaches waves, unstable highly tides period, marine erosion, etc., which would destruct the furniture, vehicles, livestock, electrical equipment, and others important document. This matter could cause emotion disrupted, worries situation, restless, and uncomfortable feeling due to destruction of property, inadequate food supply, insufficient clean water supply, as well as threaten diseases. Therefore, adaptation concept is suggested to be the best methods to sustain the quality of life and education factors. For example, effective adaptation is considered through preparation by keeping food supplies, having a boat, building temporary fortress, received accurate and current weather information, identify places for transfer (especially involved with life and important document), and report to the headmaster for immediate action. This action may reduce the negative affect on the quality of life on Kemeruk residents.

Apart of coastal erosion, coastal deposition is also suspected to occur on the Kemeruk settlements. Fortunately, the formation of coastal deposition is happen in minor impact to the resident, especially involved with the formation of sand shelf which could bring several issues on garbage pollution. Therefore, this problem will only require minimum adaptation like construct stilt houses to avoid sand deposition happen to the houses.


CONCLUSION

This study generates a model for the implementation of coastal erosion and deposition in Kemeruk residential. Researchers can use this information to identify unanswered issues or questions in the literature and define future research directions concerning on coastal erosion and deposition. This study helps educators better understand the concept of effective adaptation towards house physical characteristic and health characteristic in reducing the coastal erosion and others factors that are related to it.

The strength of this study is that it’s suggests an approach to further validating the model to improve the generalizability of the model. However, the findings to this study are limited to the characteristics of the Kemeruk residential, and yet further research in coastal erosion and deposition can be conducted in other locations and field studies to provide greater picture of coastal erosion and deposition.


REFERENCES

[1] Arnott, R.D., & Ollerhead, J. (2011). Coastal Erosion and Climate Change. Atlantic Climate Association Solutions Association, 41 pp.

[2] Byrne, B. M. (2010). Structural equation modeling with SMART PLS: basic concepts, applications, and programming (2nd ed.). N.Y.: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

[3] Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

[4] Federal Department of Town and Country Planning (JPBD) (2010). Garis Panduan Perancangan Pemuliharaan dan Pembangunan KSAS-Kawasan Pesisiran Pantai Report. 1^st ed.: 32pp.

[5] Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2016). A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

[6] Hegde, A.V. (2010). Coastal erosion and mitigation methods-Global state of art.Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Sciences, 39(4), 521-530.

[7] IPCC (2007). IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Changes. Report on 2007

[8] Mangor, K. (2004). Shoreline Management Guidelines. DHI Water and Environment, 294 pp.

[9] Marchand, M. (2010). Concepts and science for coastal erosion management. Concise report for policy makers. Deltares, Delft, 32 pp.

[10] Pilkey, O.H., Neal, W.J. & Bush, D.M. (2017). Coastal Erosion. Coastal Zones and Estuaries, 6 pp.

[11] Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) (2010). Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment Report 2010.

[12] Sin-Iti, I., Wataru, S. & Tomonori, M. (2008). Past evaluation and future projection of sea level rise related to climate change around Japan. Journal of Disaster Research, 3(2), 119-120.

[13] USEPA (2010). Climate Change-Science. Retrieved from United States Environment Protection Agency Official Portal.

How does the Neighborhood Park Effectively Reduce Stress? A Preliminary Finding

Abstract

Stress lead to illness, physical and emotional exhaustion, which could reduce the quality of health. This study investigated Neighborhood Park in reducing the stress in Kuala Lumpur city. Semi-structured interviews with psychiatrist expert were conducted to gather information of stress factor to influence the health. Through domain analysis, the Neighborhood Park model is emerged from the data and further validated using quantitative survey study is conducted. The finding established grounded model for Neighborhood Park in reducing the stress factor.

Keywords: quality of health, grounded model, semi-structured interviews, quantitative survey

Citation of Article:

Ishak, S. A., Hussein, H., Hua, A. K., & Ping, O. W. (2018). How does the Neighborhood Park Effectively Reduce Stress? A Preliminary Finding. International Journal of Academic Research in Environment and Geography, 5(1), 40-48

INTRODUCTION

Stress is a syndrome of illness to healthy. Specifically, stress could possible to cause heart disease, weight problems, sleep problems, digestive and memorizing issues, just to name a few (Kudielka and Wüst, 2010; Grippo and Johnson, 2009; Oei et al, 2006). Generally, stress can be defined as the nonspecific response of the body to any demand (Selye, 1936). According to Franken (1994), stress is also viewed as the body’s reaction, both neurologically and physiologically, to adapt a new condition. Therefore, stress can be associated with family problems (such as death of a close family member, divorce, and marriage failure), healthy problems (such as paralyzed from accident, long term injury, illness), job loss, financial problems, and so on. In Malaysia, this phenomenon is no exception especially involve with the marriage family and jobless with financial issues (Chong et al, 2013; Ahsan et al, 2009; Ismail et al, 2009). So, excessive or prolonged stress is able to cause illness, physical and emotional exhaustion, therefore, this matter should be taken more concerned.

Various studies suggest indoor activities (such as yoga, praying, watching movie, etc.) and outdoor activities (such as exercise, hanging out with friends, shopping, etc.) have ability to cope and reduce the stress factors (Al-Dubai et al, 2011; Redhwan et al, 2009). Simultaneously, many studies suggested green space or living in the lush amount of green environment will have benefits to mental health, particularly in reducing the levels of stress (Tyrväinen et al., 2014; Ulrich et al., 1991; Van den Berg et al., 2010). Based on CABE Space by Heriot-Watt University, stated about nine out of ten people use green spaces value the benefits for their health and wellbeing. According to a study by Maas et al. (2006) in Netherlands has found the relationship of abundant green space in a neighbourhood with the residents. They tend to enjoy and live in a better health. Besides that, Thompson et al (2014) study shows there are significantly interrelated on lowering stress with physical activity in green space for mental wellbeing also as resulted to overall health. In fact, Thompson et. al. (2012), the high level of green space in residential neighborhood area can be perceived lower stress in urban population. This is because nature gives positive sensory experiences to physical and emotional wellbeing, also assist in social interactions of the community (Adevi and Mårtensson, 2013).

To address the effective in reducing stress, this study investigates Neighborhood Park as the main theme to restore the mental health. Specifically, the objective of this study is to develop a model of Neighborhood Park in reducing the stress.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Establishing Grounded Model of Neighborhood Park in Reducing Stress

This study uses two methods to establish grounded model of Neighborhood Park in reducing stress, where the first are involve face-to-face interview with a small group of psychiatrist expert, and the second are further validated on the model with a quantitative survey study involve with 50 respondents.

According to Creswell (2005), particular design new grounded theory model should have the able to be adapted, implemented, and reassessed according to researcher’s need. Therefore, the interpretative research method is applied by involving with the data collection from variety of sources of a small number of participants in detail and in depth (Chua, 2016). The creation of a model is fully and directly emerges from the data, but not from the researcher (Conrad, 1995). The interview data were interpreted to generate a model or theory regarding to the phenomenon that is grounded from the originated data (Strauss and Corbin, 1990).

Participants and Survey Questionnaire

Sampling method used to establish grounded theory research is to select respondents that have potential to provide information to generate a theory or model in the corpus data. Psychiatrist expert (n=5) were selected as main respondents because they were directly involve with the patients that experienced in stress problems. Meanwhile, quantitative survey data is collected from 50 respondents at Taman Aman, Petaling Jaya.

The survey questionnaire used in this study consists of two sections that correspond to the demographic details and six main variables in the Neighborhood Park model generated from the emerging data of interview. There were total of 30 items. The items used categorical scale of measurement ranging from 1 to 5 of Likert approach, which indicate ‘1’ as strongly disagree and ‘5’ as strong agree.

Analysis for Interview Data

From the domain analysis, six core themes are emerged from the data, namely stress, failure, inability and no confident, park, facility, and Neighborhood Park reduce stress. In other words, Neighborhood Park is considered main theme and tracing its relationship to other themes. Since the factors of inability and no confident, as well as failure to cause stress, therefore, majority psychiatrist expert are positively agreed that relaxing and exercising in the park would reduce the cause to health problems such as depression, sleep problems, digestive problems, heart disease, weight problems, etc. Besides that, facilities and services provided in the park will increase the possibility of respondents to visit and opportunity for family gathering is enhanced.

Analysis for Quantitative Survey Data

Quantitative survey data of 50 respondents were collected from Taman Aman, Petaling Jaya. Majority participants are male (n=30, 60%), followed by female (n=20, 40%). Among them are ages 21 to 30 with 25 (50%), followed by 31 to 40 with 13 (26%), and above 41 with 12 (24%). Most of the respondents are student (n=32, 64%), continue by employed (n=12, 24%), and others (n=6, 12%). Lastly, majority participants taking part in survey questionnaire are Chinese with 27 respondents (54%), followed by Indian with 10 respondents (20%), Malay with 9 respondents (18%), and others with 4 respondents (8%).

RESULTS

In testing the validity and reliability of the model, PLS-SEM analysis was performed in two stages. Firstly, the validity (construct validity and discriminant validity) and reliability (composite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability) of the variables (for the six themes) were examined to ensure that the items are valid and reliable to represent the concepts of the six variables in the model. Finally the relationships among the variables were identified and reported.

Validity and Reliability of the Variables

In PLS-SEM analysis, the six variables are latent variables that are reflectively represented by their indicator. The convergent validity of a variable is achieved when the loadings of the items for each variable are (i) each individual loadings items is greater than 0.5, and (ii) the average variance extracted (AVE) for variable are greater than 0.5 (Hair et al, 2016). The outputs of the validity and reliability analysis of the six variables are show in Table 1. The results indicate that six variables achieved their construct validity. Simultaneously, the variables were reliable because the reliability of each variable is achieved when both Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliabilities are greater than 0.7 (Hair et al, 2016).

The discriminant validity of a construct is achieved when inter-correlations among the variables in the model is smaller than 0.90. In other words, the variables are independent to one another and no overlapping is occurred. Multi-collinearity can cause overlapping among the variable in model. This situation happen is due to the extremely strong inter-correlations (where r ≥ 0.9) between variables in model (Bryne, 2010). Table 2 shows the inter-correlation coefficient among all variables is less than 0.9, and is free from multi-collinearity problems, and this proved that discriminant validity of variable for the model is achieved.

The Final Model

Smart PLS is used in PLS-SEM analysis to establish the relationship among the variables in the model. Smart PLS software have the ability to multiple equations of the correlational and causal relationships in a model; which benefits the researchers to accurately and effectively model and analyze inter-relationships among latent variables that have multiple indicators (Hair et al, 2016).

The final model can be interpret in Figure 1 of the Neighborhood Park effectively reduce stress variable with other five core factors. The stress factor is influenced by failure and inability and no confident, which directly to influence the park before end up in Neighborhood Park factor. The Table 3 shows the factors contribute 82.9% of Neighborhood Park effectively reduce stress (R²=0.829).

Table 3 indicate stress is significantly influenced by inability and no confident (β=0.305, p<0.001), but no correlation with failure factor (β=0.044, p>0.1); followed by park factor that being influenced by stress (β=-0.575, p<0.001) and facility (β=0.229, p<0.001); and Neighborhood Park factor is influenced by park (β=0.305, p<0.001).

DISCUSSIONS

Four criteria from the study can be used in defining the model of Neighborhood Park effectively reduce stress. First, inability and no confident factor could occur due to negative self-talk, marriage separation or divorce, death of a spouse, relationship difficulties, as well as injury or illness, which directly affected the stress factors to appear in the individual-patient. The stress factors will increasing when financial problems, jobless, and major life changes is exist personally. Therefore, this study of establish model confirmed the positive opinion of park can reduce stress problems through exercise, relaxing the mind, spending time with family, opportunity for friends gathering, and so on. Hence, it is importance to enhance the facilities and services provided in the park for the visitor to enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to relax and release the stress. The facilities is referred to toilet, car park and bicycle rack, trees as shelter, and clear information on safety purposes; while services that required to maintain is the cleanliness, nature view with water feature, variety activities, and good lighting in the park. Lastly, the Neighborhood Park factor highlighted the children’s playground, sensory garden, and food stall become priority in ensuring the park to become an important attraction places in the future.

CONCLUSION

This study generates a model for the Neighborhood Park effectively reduces stress in Kuala Lumpur. Researchers can use this information to identify unanswered issues or questions in the literature and define future research directions concerning the Neighborhood Park. The study helps educators better understand the effectively of Neighborhood Park in reduce the stress and the factors that are related to.

The strength of this study is the suggestion an approach to further validating the grounded model to improve the generated model. However, the finding of the study are limited to the characteristics of visitors in the park as well as stress experienced respondents, and further research in Neighborhood Park effectively reduces stress required to be conducted in several locations and field studies to provide greater picture on the Neighborhood Park.

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