Does the proportion of public housing tenants in a community affect their wellbeing? Results from New Zealand: A retrospective cohort study using linked administrative data

Abstract

A concern that living in concentrated public housing could worsen outcomes for public housing tenants has underpinned policy for decades in New Zealand; most recently, in decision-making around how much public housing to provide in new, mixed-tenure communities. Our research examines the degree to which public housing is concentrated in New Zealand, and analyses the association between the proportion of public housing where public housing tenants live in 2013, and their health outcomes five years later. Most public housing tenants are living in areas with low numbers of public housing tenants. As the proportion of public housing tenants in the local population increases, their hospitalisation rate decreases, as does the chance they would utilise mental health outpatient services and the number of prescriptions they receive, although in most cases this reversed for very high densities of public housing tenants. Our study indicates that higher densities of public housing than often assumed may be beneficial to public housing tenants.