Perceived environmental housing quality and wellbeing of movers

Abstract

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.

Design: Cross 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.

Setting: North western region of Switzerland including the city of Basel.

Participants: Random sample of 3870 subjects aged 18-70 who had moved in 1997, participation rate 55.7%.

Results: A 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.

Conclusion: An 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.