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Does urban sprawl impact on self-rated health and psychological distress? A multilevel study from Sydney, Australia
Bin B Jalaludin1, Frances L Garden
1Centre for Research, Evidence Management and Surveillance, Clinical Support Cluster (Western), LMB 7017, Liverpool, NSW 1871, Australia. b.jalaludin@unsw.edu.au
Abstract:
Mental health can be influenced by a number of neighbourhood physical and social environmental characteristics. We aimed to determine whether urban sprawl (based on population density) in Sydney, Australia, is associated with self-rated health and psychological distress. We used a cross-sectional multilevel study design. Individual level data on self-rated health and psychological distress were obtained from the 2006 and 2007 NSW Population Health Survey. We did not find significant associations between urban sprawl and self-rated health and psychological distress after controlling for individual and area level covariates. However, positive neighbourhood factors were generally associated with better self-rated health and lower psychological distress but few of these associations were statistically significant.
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