RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The association of neighbourhood psychosocial stressors and self-rated health in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
JF Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
JO J Epidemiol Community Health
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 1042
OP 1049
DO 10.1136/jech.2006.052548
VO 61
IS 12
A1 Charles Agyemang
A1 Carolien van Hooijdonk
A1 Wanda Wendel-Vos
A1 Ellen Lindeman
A1 Karien Stronks
A1 Mariël Droomers
YR 2007
UL http://jech.bmj.com/content/61/12/1042.abstract
AB Objective: To investigate associations between neighbourhood-level psychosocial stressors (i.e. experience of crime, nuisance from neighbours, drug misuse, youngsters frequently hanging around, rubbish on the streets, feeling unsafe and dissatisfaction with the quality of green space) and self-rated health in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Participants: A random sample of 2914 subjects aged ⩾ 18 years from 75 neighbourhoods in the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Design: Individual data from the Social State of Amsterdam Survey 2004 were linked to data on neighbourhood-level attributes from the Amsterdam Living and Security Survey 2003. Multilevel logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios and neighbourhood-level variance.Results: Fair to poor self-rated health was significantly associated with neighbourhood-level psychosocial stressors: nuisance from neighbours, drug misuse, youngsters frequently hanging around, rubbish on the streets, feeling unsafe and dissatisfaction with green space. In addition, when all the neighbourhood-level psychosocial stressors were combined, individuals from neighbourhoods with a high score of psychosocial stressors were more likely than those from neighbourhoods with a low score to report fair to poor health. These associations remained after adjustments for individual-level factors (i.e. age, sex, educational level, income and ethnicity). The neighbourhood-level variance showed significant differences in self-rated health between neighbourhoods independent of individual-level demographic and socioeconomic factors.Conclusion: Our findings show that neighbourhood-level psychosocial stressors are associated with self-rated health. Strategies that target these factors might prove a promising way to improve public health.