Effect of Residential Environment on the Health Status in Apartment Inhabitants

Kang, Ki Won; Kim, Hwa Joon; Kwon, Geun Yong; Jung, Min Soo

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
WHO insisted on that we should study about association between residential environment and health status and make 'health city' concept as practical motto. This study analyzed about that how community environment affected their health.
METHODS
We surveyed residential environment satisfaction and health status of a apartment complex residents. We transformed Chun's index about housing environment study and social capital index of WHO and used as community health survey. We analyzed the association between health status and related factor by using principal compound analysis and logistic regression analysis.
RESULTS
We found out that the perceived health status 1 years ago was highly related to the residential environment and also extracted five residential environment component (APT maintenance, House, APT complex, Neighbor, APT building) by principal component analysis. After residential environment component, demographic and socioeconomic variable were controlled, the high satisfaction group of APT complex and neighbor relationship was in lower risk of perceived health status 1 years ago than the low satisfaction group.
CONCLUSIONS
Recently, the importance of residential environment and neighborhood is shaped as community capacity. Therefore, social relationship and residential environment should be the core variable for health promotion of community. After all, we should know the relationship of residential environment and perceived health status 1 years ago. This helps the concept of health city clearly.