Centre for Policy on Ageing



Quality of accommodation and risk of depression in later life — an analysis of prospective data from the Gospel Oak Project
Author(s)	Robert Stewart, Martin Prince, Rowan Harwood
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 17, no 12, December 2002
Pages	pp 1091-1098
Keywords	Depression ; Housing [elderly] ; Quality ; Evaluation ; Correlation ; Longitudinal surveys ; Camden.
Annotation	An observer's impression of accommodation quality was a strong and independent predictor of depression in this sample of 654 residents aged 65+ from the Gospel Oak Study. Pervasive depression (SHORT-CARE) was assessed at baseline and after one year. In the 131 participants without depression at baseline, worse accommodation was associated with depression after one year between the three accommodation groups: private or privately rented mainly 19th century houses; high quality local authority, ex-local authority, or housing association properties; and poor quality, large, medium or high-rise local authority blocks. A stronger association of housing quality and depression was found for those cohabiting rather than living alone. The study also notes that the internal quality of housing has received relatively little investigation as a risk factor for psychiatric morbidity in older people. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-030122220 A
Classmark	ENR: KE: 59: 4C: 49: 3J: 82L8
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.