Abstract
ObjectiveHousing and neighbourhood conditions are widely acknowledged important social determinants of health and health inequalities that persist in developed countries despite general improvements in health outcomes across populations. Previous research has investigated what effect crowded living conditions have on mental health and concluded that women living in crowded conditions were more likely to suffer from depression. In contrast, men living in the same conditions responded with withdrawal or aggression. To the best of our knowledge, only a few studies have examined the association between recently-arrived migrants living in crowded conditions and poor mental health. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between crowded living conditions among recently-arrived migrants in Sweden and mental ill-health. The result is based on 681 migrants who completed and returned questionnaires in 2015–2016.ResultsThe analyses, independent of gender, resulted in a significant unadjusted odds ratio of 1.46 (95% CI 1.05–2.03); even after adjustments were made, the association remained significant OR 1.47 (1.05–2.07). When adding stability in housing into the adjustment-model, the OR did not remain significant OR 1.40 (0.99–1.99), P-value 0.061.
Highlights
Migrants’ mental health issues frequently present a challenge to clinicians and policy makers in the recipient country [1]
Since previous research indicates that housing conditions could be associated with mental ill-health [11–14] as well as that recentlyarrived migrants (RAM) suffer from mental ill-health [1, 2, 5–7], it is of great importance to investigate if crowded living could affect mental ill-health among RAM in Sweden
The results showed that being a RAM and living in crowded living conditions increased the odds for suffering from mental ill-health, if the whole population was analysed both before and after adjustment were made for age and educational level
Summary
There were 307 respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 and 155 between the ages of 35 and 44. Of the 681 respondents, 166 rented an apartment without a creditor (111 males and 55 females) and 198 were living with friends or family (152 males and 46 females). The analyses performed, independent of gender, resulted in a significant odds ratio of 1.46 (95% CI 1.05– 2.03), see Table 1. Adjusting for age and educational level resulted in a non-significant OR for men 1.06 (0.94–1.2) and for women 1.01 (0.84–1.22). When considering both women and men together, the OR became significant 1.47 (1.05–2.07), see Table 2. When adding stability in housing into the adjustment-model, the results turned out to be non-significant OR 1.40 (0.99–1.99), see Table 3
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