Keller, Amélie;
Groot, Jonathan;
Matta, Joane;
Bu, Feifei;
El Aarbaoui, Tarik;
Melchior, Maria;
Fancourt, Daisy;
... Varga, Tibor V; + view all
(2022)
Housing environment and mental health of Europeans during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-country comparison.
Scientific Reports
, 12
(1)
, Article 5612. 10.1038/s41598-022-09316-4.
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Abstract
Many studies have investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. Throughout the pandemic, time spent at home increased to a great extent due to restrictive measures. Here we set out to investigate the relationship between housing conditions and the mental health of populations across European countries. We analyzed survey data collected during spring 2020 from 69,136 individuals from four cohorts from Denmark, France, and the UK. The investigated housing conditions included household density, composition, and crowding, access to outdoor facilities, dwelling type, and urbanicity. The outcomes were loneliness, anxiety, and life satisfaction. Logistic regression models were used, and results were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis. In the meta-analysis, living alone was associated with higher levels of loneliness (OR = 3.08, 95% CI 1.87–5.07), and lower life satisfaction (OR = 1.27, 95% CI 1.05–0.55), compared to living with others. Not having access to an outdoor space and household crowding were suggestively associated with worse outcomes. Living in crowded households, living alone, or lacking access to outdoor facilities may be particularly important in contributing to poor mental health during a lockdown. Addressing the observed fundamental issues related to housing conditions within society will likely have positive effects in reducing social inequalities, as well as improving preparedness for future pandemics.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Housing environment and mental health of Europeans during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-country comparison |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-022-09316-4 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09316-4 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Disease prevention, Epidemiology, Public health, Quality of life, Risk factors |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10146714 |
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