Research report
Perceived environmental housing quality and wellbeing of movers
S Kahlmeier, C Schindler, L Grize, C Braun-Fahrländer
Institute of Social
and Preventive Medicine of the University of Basel, Department
Environment and Health, Steinengraben 49, 4051 Basel, Switzerland
Correspondence to: Sonja Kahlmeier (s.kahlmeier{at}unibas.ch)
Accepted for publication 26 March 2001
STUDY OBJECTIVE
To
examine whether changes in environmental housing quality influence the
wellbeing of movers taking into account other dimensions of housing
quality and sociodemographic factors.
DESIGNCross sectional
telephone survey. Associations between changes in satisfaction with 40 housing quality indicators (including environmental quality) and an
improvement in self rated health (based on a standardised question)
were analysed by multiple logistic regression adjusting for
sociodemographic variables. Objective measures of wellbeing or
environmental quality were not available.
SETTINGNorth western
region of Switzerland including the city of Basel.
PARTICIPANTSRandom
sample of 3870 subjects aged 18-70 who had moved in 1997, participation rate 55.7%.
RESULTSA gain in self
rated health was most strongly predicted by an improved satisfaction
with indicators related to the environmental housing quality measured
as "location of building" (adjusted odds ratio (OR) =1.58, 95%
confidence intervals (CI) =1.28, 1.96) and "perceived air quality"
(OR=1.58, 95% CI=1.24, 2.01) and to the apartment itself, namely
"suitability" (OR=1.77, 95% CI=1.41, 2.23), "relationship with
neighbours" (OR=1.46, 95% CI=1.19, 1.80) and "noise from
neighbours" (OR=1.32, 95% CI=1.07, 1.64). The destination of moving
and the main reason to move modified some of the associations with
environmental indicators.
CONCLUSIONAn
improvement in perceived environmental housing quality was conducive to
an increase in wellbeing of movers when other dimensions of housing
quality and potential confounders were taken into account.
Keywords: self rated health; housing quality; environment
© 2001 by Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
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