Social determinants of the sick building syndrome: exploring the interrelated effects of social position and psychosocial situation

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of various social factors for the prevalence of “sick building syndrome” (SBS) in residential buildings. A survey has been conducted in Malmö, Sweden, resulting in 1131 randomly selected residents participating in the study (response rate 57 %). Two clusters of social factors were examined: the socio-structural position of the individual and psychosocial aspects of the housing situation. The results show that country of birth, in particular, and also education and employment status are important predictors of “domestic SBS”. “Housing satisfaction” turns out to be an important psychosocial predictor of SBS, explaining, for example, why immigrants report more symptoms than natives.

Keywords:

• environmental syndrome
• psychosocial factors
• social factors
• housing satisfaction
• health inequalities

Additional information

Funding

Funding. The study was funded in part by the Swedish Research Council Formas [grant number 24.2/2001-0539].