House value as an indicator of cumulative wealth is strongly related to morbidity and mortality risk in older people: a census-based cross-sectional and longitudinal study

Sheelah Connolly · Dermot O’Reilly · Michael Rosato

64 citations0/0 files storedInternational Journal of Epidemiology

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Health disparities and outcomes Aging, Health, and Disability Public Health and Social Inequalities

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There has been relatively little research into health inequalities in older populations. This may be partly explained by the difficulty in identifying appropriate indicators of socio-economic status for older people. Ideally, indicators of socio-economic status to be used in studies of health inequalities in older populations should incorporate some measure of life-time socio-economic standing, and house value may fill this role. This study examined whether an indicator of accumulated wealth based on a combination of housing tenure and house value was a strong predictor of ill-health in older populations. METHODS: A total of 191 848 people aged > or =65 years and not living in communal establishments were identified from the 2001 Northern Ireland Census and followed for 5 years. Self-reported health and mortality risk by housing tenure/house value groupings were examined while controlling for a range of other demographic and socio-economic characteristics. RESULTS: Housing tenure/house value was highly correlated with other indicators of socio-economic status. Public-sector renters had worse self-reported health and higher mortality rates than owner occupiers but significant gradients were also found between those living in the highest- and lowest-valued owner-occupier properties. The relationship between housing tenure and value was unchanged by adjustment for indicators of social support and quality of the physical environment. Adjustment for limiting long-term illness and self-reported health at baseline narrowed but did not eliminate the health gains associated with living in more expensive housing. CONCLUSIONS: House value of residence is an accessible and powerful indicator of accumulated wealth that is highly correlated with current health status and predictive of future mortality risk in older populations.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 64 citations exist upstream.

References

2005Indicators of socioeconomic position (part 1): Figure 1 1987Deprivation 2004Housing and Public Health 2001Income and health: the time dimension 2001The socioeconomic status of older adults: How should we measure it in studies of health inequalities?1997Effects of Social Support and Personal Coping Resources on Mortality in Older Age: The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam 1996Do socioeconomic differences in mortality persist after retirement? 25 Year follow up of civil servants from the first Whitehall study 2003Socioeconomic inequalities in morbidity among the elderly; a European overview

Cited by

2013Understanding and Controlling Hot Spots of Crime: The Importance of Formal and Informal Social Controls 2013Long-term care use and socio-economic status in Belgium: a survival analysis using health care insurance data 2016Are housing tenure and car access still associated with health? A repeat cross-sectional study of UK adults over a 13-year period 2019Gender and Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health at Older Ages Across Different European Welfare Clusters: Evidence from SHARE Data, 2004–2015

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.