Structural equation analysis of the causal relationship between health and perceived indoor environment
Charlotte Brauer1, Esben Budtz-Jørgensen, Sigurd Mikkelsen
1Department of Occupational Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital, Glostrup, Denmark. chabra01@glo.regionh.dk
Objectives:
To explore the temporal relationship and reversed effects between health and perception of the indoor environment using structural equation models.
Methods:
The study was a two-phase prospective questionnaire study with a cross-lagged design. Altogether 1,740 adults participated on both occasions.
Results:
The perceived indoor environment had only weak effects on health at follow-up. However, the results strongly indicated a reversed effect that health problems may lead to increased complaints about the indoor environment.
Conclusions:
Structural equation models are powerful analytical tools for disentangling the effects of a specific variable on another in high dimensional data with complex patterns of associations. The analyses confirmed the results of our previous logistic regression analysis about the strong reversed effect. Hence, it is probable that a reversed effect between health and complaints about the indoor environment exists.
Related Concept Videos
Dimensions of Health and Illness
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention II
The agent-host-environment model states that disease results from...
Concepts of Health and Illness
Causality in Epidemiology
Criteria for Causality: Bradford Hill Criteria - II
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention I
The health belief model (HBM) attempts to predict health-related behavior in specific belief patterns. According to the HBM, a person's...
