Citizen Insecurity and Evaluation of Public Space, Montes de Oca (Costa Rica)

The issue of mental health should be addressed both from individual and collective scopes. Therefore, Psychology must focus on the environment in which people develop. In Costa Rica, one of the most outstanding problems in recent years is public insecurity, which, according to the statements of this document, is influenced by the characteristics of the public space, which has an important role in promoting health. In this article, it is summarized an investigation carried out in order to identify those physical and social characteristics of the Canton Montes de Oca public space that influence the perception of insecurity. To do this, the Irvine Minnesota Inventory (Boarnet, Day, Alfonzo, Forsyth and Oakes, 2006) was used and adapted to the context of the study as well as the Perceived Insecurity Scale (Ovares and Quiros, 2013) developed during the investigation.