Healthy Mixing? Investigating the Associations between Neighbourhood Housing Tenure Mix and Health Outcomes for Urban

This paper examines the association between housing tenure mix and health out-comes for urban residents. The analysis used Cox’s proportional hazard regression modelling with a range of health measures from two waves of the Scottish Health Survey plus linked hospital morbidity records for the survey respondents. There was no consistent pattern in health outcomes according to housing tenure mix. For spe-cific health issues, particular types of neighbourhood had significantly different (worse) outcomes: areas with a sizeable social renting sector for self-reported health; areas with a sizeable social- or private-renting sector for accidents; and areas domi-nated by social renting for alcohol-related illnesses. There are indications that adjust-ments to the tenure mix of social housing areas might lead to improvements in some health outcomes: improved mental health and reduced smoking, via a reduc-tion in area deprivation; and reduced alcohol-related illnesses due to possible effects of tenure mix on material context and culture