Housing Improvements, Perceived Housing Quality and Psychosocial Benefits From the Home

Abstract

In advanced countries, where many of the most deleterious physical health effects of poor housing have been eradicated or substantially reduced, there has been increasing interest in mental health and psychosocial benefits as housing outcomes. Recently available data, based on a large-scale survey of social renters in Glasgow, have offered the opportunity to explore the psychosocial benefits of home in previously unavailable detail, over a range of property types and housing improvement interventions. Findings indicate that home improvements have mediating effects upon the psychosocial benefits, which occupants derive from their homes via their impacts upon perceived home quality. However, landlord relations and the quality of the wider neighbourhood within which improvements take place are shown to be important moderators of this relationship. In particular, landlords' overall service performance, how they keep tenants informed and how they take tenants' views on board, all make a difference to perceptions of home quality and to psychosocial status and control.

Keywords:

• Housing improvements
• psychosocial benefits
• social renting
• status
• control

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted as part of the GoWell Glasgow Community Health and Well-being Research and Learning Programme (http://www.gowellonline.com). GoWell is a collaborative partnership between the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, the University of Glasgow and the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, sponsored by Glasgow Housing Association, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Health Scotland and the Scottish Government.

Notes

¹ This assessment was based on assessment procedures from a well-established critical appraisal tool (EPHPP, 1998) endorsed by the Cochrane Public Health Review Group (Armstrong et al., 2011) in which evaluation criteria favoured prospective controlled studies, including randomised controlled trials (see Thomson et al., 2009b). Nevertheless, again referencing Ambrose, although the calibre of data offered by changes in real-life housing environments may not equate with that of highly circumscribed laboratory conditions, this does not invalidate evidence from the field (ibid.).

² see http://www.gowellonline.com.

³ These data displayed two dimensions congruent with the concepts of control and status, rather than the three factors found in Kearns et al. (2000). This may possibly be accounted for by the greater socio-economic homogeneity of the GoWell sample.