The Impact of U.S. Housing Type and Residential Living Situations on Mental Health during COVID-19

Abstract

Residential environments could be associated with the mental health of residents, in general, and during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, limited studies have investigated the relationship between these two. This study used data from the Household Pulse Survey, collected between 23 April 2020 and 23 November 2020 to explore the relationship between mental health status as perceived by the residents and housing tenure (own or rent), building type, and the number of household members, while accounting for sociodemographic characteristics, general health-related variables, and week-specific unobserved heterogeneities. The findings suggest that renters had higher odds of experiencing mental health issues than homeowners. Residents in multifamily housing units had higher odds of experiencing mental health problems than single-family units. Further, more people in the household were associated with lower odds of experiencing mental health episodes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Private renters in shared housing: investigating housing conditions and mental well-being in Australia during COVID-19

“…During the lockdowns, social interaction and support provided by people who shared housing reduced their perception of loneliness and isolation (compared to people who live alone), as reflected in the results of this study. Our results are consistent with other forms of shared housing, like cohousing communities (Izuhara et al, 2022 ), housing cooperatives (Guity-Zapata et al, 2023 ), multifamily housing (Ghimire et al, 2021 ), that indicate that living with more people during the pandemic contributed to the reduction of mental health issues. The results of this study indicate that the number of adults at home during pandemic-like crisis events can be both positive for relationship building and negative due to space constraints and disruptions.…”

Unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health: Role of the neighborhood environment

“…Home ownership and household size are two factors that reflect housing conditions. Several studies have suggested that the impact of housing condition on mental health has been significant during the pandemic ( Amerio et al., 2020 ; Ghimire et al., 2021 ). Finally, we asked the respondents to report whether their neighborhoods were currently under lockdown, whether they have ever been quarantined, and whether there were confirmed cases in their neighborhood.…”

Effect of Housing Quality on the Mental Health of University Students during the COVID-19 Lockdown

“…Studies published in recent literature have started investigating, in a systematic way, the overall quality of built environment [ 29 , 30 ] and living spaces, revealing that the absence of accessible outdoor space from the house (e.g., garden, terrace) contributed to concerning levels of psychological and behavioral symptomatology [ 31 ], confirming that housing environments could be associated with the mental health and wellbeing of residents [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. While mental illnesses can be investigated through structured and validated scales, housing quality is mainly assessed in terms of occupants’ perception, due to the complexity of surveying a high number of different apartments and the low psychometric reliability of existing tools [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ].…”