Housing and health: an overview

The relationship between neighborhood social capital and health from a biopsychosocial perspective: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

The Social Determinants of Health (SDH) influence the health of people throughout their lives, and can be positive, protective or risk factors for the population and, in turn, biological, psychological, or social. The social environment conditions the health status of the neighborhood, population, and social group, which can be a health asset due to its strong psychosocial and socio-cultural influence. Social capital is a community asset of the healthy neighborhood that must be known in order to promote community health.

OBJECTIVES

The objective is to determine the relationship between social capital and neighborhood biopsychosocial health.

METHODS

A systematic review was conducted based on PRISMA: PubMed, Wos, Scopus, Embase, and Cochrane databases. The search was conducted from January to March 2023. Three authors independently extracted data using a structured form.

RESULTS

Out of 527 records, 17 results passed the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The positive and statistically significant relationship between neighborhood social capital (NSC) and the physical and mental health of neighbors is confirmed, that is, the higher the NSC, the more exercise, better oral health in children and physical health in pregnant women, lower tobacco consumption and lower prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus. At the psychological level, greater NSC leads to better mental health, mental well-being, life satisfaction, quality of life, self-perceived health, higher cognitive function, and less depression.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, social capital is an important SDH and health asset that influences neighborhood biopsychosocial health and should be known and researched for health promotion in community settings. More evidence is needed to support the results obtained.

Development of a New Measure of Housing Security: The REDD-CAT Housing Security Measure

BACKGROUND

Housing security is a key social determinant of behavior related to health outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to develop a new patient-reported outcome measure that evaluates aspects of housing security for use in the Re-Engineered Discharge for Diabetes-Computer Adaptive Test (REDD-CAT) measurement system.

DESIGN

Qualitative data, literature reviews, and cross-sectional survey study.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 225 people with T2DM provided responses to the items in this item pool.

MAIN MEASURES

A new item pool that evaluates important aspects of housing security was developed using stakeholder data from focus groups of persons with T2DM.

KEY RESULTS

For the Housing Affordability scale, factor analysis (both exploratory and confirmatory) supported the retention of six items. Of these items, none exhibited sparse cells or problems with monotonicity; no items were deleted due to low item-adjusted total score correlations. For the six affordability items, a constrained graded response model indicated no items exhibited misfit; thus, all were retained. No items indicated differential item functioning (examined for age, sex, education, race, and socioeconomic status). Thus, the final Affordability item bank comprised six items. A Housing Safety index (three items) and a Home Features index (eight items) were also developed. Reliability (i.e., internal consistency and test-retest reliability) and validity (i.e., convergent, discriminant, and known-groups) of the new measures were also supported.

CONCLUSIONS

The REDD-CAT Housing Security Measure provides a reliable and valid assessment of housing affordability, safety, and home features in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Future work is needed to establish the clinical utility of this measure in other clinical populations.

Can Homes Affect Well-Being? A Scoping Review among Housing Conditions, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Mental Health Outcomes

The purpose of the scoping review is to explore the relationship between housing conditions, indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and mental health implications on human well-being. In fact, time spent at home increased due to the recent COVID-19 lockdown period, and social-sanitary emergencies are expected to grow due to the urbanization phenomenon. Thus, the role of the physical environment in which we live, study, and work, has become of crucial importance, as the literature has recently highlighted. This scoping review, conducted on the electronic database Scopus, led to the identification of 366 articles. This, after the screening processes based on the inclusion criteria, led to the final inclusion of 31 papers related specifically to the OECD area. The review allowed the identification of five housing conditions [house type, age, and floor level; housing qualities; household composition; neighborhood; green spaces] that, by influencing the IEQ parameters, had impacts on the mental health outcomes addressed. By synthesizing the contributions of the review, a list of design recommendations has been provided. These will serve as a basis for future researchers, from which to develop measures to reduce inequalities in housing by making them healthier, more resilient, and salutogenic.

Housing safety and health academic and public opinion mining from 1945 to 2021: PRISMA, cluster analysis, and natural language processing approaches

Housing safety and health problems threaten owners' and occupiers' safety and health. Nevertheless, there is no systematic review on this topic to the best of our knowledge. This study compared the academic and public opinions on housing safety and health and reviewed 982 research articles and 3,173 author works on housing safety and health published in the Web of Science Core Collection. PRISMA was used to filter the data, and natural language processing (NLP) was used to analyze emotions of the abstracts. Only 16 housing safety and health articles existed worldwide before 1998 but increased afterward. U.S. scholars published most research articles (30.76%). All top 10 most productive countries were developed countries, except China, which ranked second (16.01%). Only 25.9% of institutions have inter-institutional cooperation, and collaborators from the same institution produce most work. This study found that most abstracts were positive (n = 521), but abstracts with negative emotions attracted more citations. Despite many industries moving toward AI, housing safety and health research are exceptions as per articles published and Tweets. On the other hand, this study reviewed 8,257 Tweets to compare the focus of the public to academia. There were substantially more housing/residential safety (n = 8198) Tweets than housing health Tweets (n = 59), which is the opposite of academic research. Most Tweets about housing/residential safety were from the United Kingdom or Canada, while housing health hazards were from India. The main concern about housing safety per Twitter includes finance, people, and threats to housing safety. By contrast, people mainly concerned about costs of housing health issues, COVID, and air quality. In addition, most housing safety Tweets were neutral but positive dominated residential safety and health Tweets.

Housing Spaces in Nine European Countries: A Comparison of Dimensional Requirements

Modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements; housing dimensions and functional characteristics are relevant issues, mainly considering population ageing and disability. The housing standards of nine European countries were compared to analyze their ability to satisfy new population need, in terms of size. The regulations were downloaded from the websites of the official channels of each country. A wide variability in room size was observed (e.g., single room: from 9 m² in Italy to 7 m² in France, to the absence of any limit in England and Wales, Germany-Hesse, and Denmark). Italian and French legislations define housing dimension considering the room destination and the number of people. The Swedish regulation provides performance requirements and functional indications but does not specify the minimum dimensions of habitable rooms. The rooms’ minimum heights vary between 2.70 m in Italy and Portugal and 2.60 m in the Netherlands, but no limits are established in England and Wales. A diverse approach among European countries regulations is observed: from a market-oriented logic one (e.g., England and Wales) in which room minimum dimensions are not defined to a prescriptive one (Italy) and one that is functionality-oriented (the Netherlands). However, considering the health, social, environmental, and economic trends, many of these standards should be revised.

Modelling VOC Emissions from Building Materials for Healthy Building Design

The profound qualitative changes of indoor air and the progressive increase in the absolute number of pollutants, combined with the scientific awareness of the health impacts deriving from spending more than 90% of one’s time inside confined spaces, have increased the attention onto the needs of well-being, hygiene, and the health of users. This scientific attention has produced studies and analyses useful for evidence-based insights into building performance. Among the main pollutants in the indoor environment, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) play a central role, and the use of box-models using the mass balance approach and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models are now consolidated to study their concentrations in an indoor environment. This paper presents the use of both types of modelling for the prediction of the VOC concentration in the indoor environment and the proposal of a guide value for the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)-oriented building design, specifically related to the indoor VOC concentration due to building materials. Methodologically, the topic is addressed through environmental sampling, the definition of the parameters necessary for the numerical models, the simulations with the box-model and the CFD, and the comparison between the results. They show a good correspondence between the modelling tools used, highlighting the central role of ventilation and allowing a discussion of the relationship between regulatory limits of emissivity of materials and Indoor Air Guide Values for the concentration of pollutants.