Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom.
Am J Epidemiol. 2018 Mar 1;187(3):465-473. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwx278.
Homeownership is consistently associated with better mental health, but whether becoming a homeowner in later in life has positive psychological benefits has not, to our knowledge, been examined. We assessed whether acquiring a home after age 50 years was associated with depression in a representative sample of older US adults. We used individual fixed-effects models based on data from 20,524 respondents aged ≥50 years from the Health and Retirement Study, who were interviewed biennially during 1993-2010. Depressive symptoms were measured using the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Controlling for confounders, becoming a homeowner in later life predicted a decline in depressive symptoms in the same year (β = -0.0768, 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.152, -0.007). The association remained significant after 2 years (β = -0.0556, 95% CI: -0.134, -0.001) but weakened afterward. Buying a home for reasons associated with positive characteristics of the new house or neighborhood drove this association (β = -0.426, 95% CI: -0.786, -0.066), while acquiring a home for reasons associated with characteristics of the previous home or neighborhood, the desire to be closer to relatives, downsizing, or upsizing did not predict mental health improvements. Findings suggest that there are small but significant benefits for mental health associated with acquiring a home in older age.
住房拥有率与更好的心理健康状况密切相关，但我们并不知道，晚年拥有住房是否会对心理健康产生积极影响。我们评估了在 50 岁以后购买住房是否与美国老年成年人的抑郁症状有关。我们使用了来自健康与退休研究（Health and Retirement Study）的 20524 名年龄≥50 岁的受访者的数据，这些受访者在 1993 年至 2010 年期间每两年接受一次采访。使用 8 项中心流行病学研究抑郁量表（Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale）来衡量抑郁症状。在控制了混杂因素后，晚年购买住房预示着当年抑郁症状的下降（β=-0.0768，95%置信区间（CI）：-0.152，-0.007）。这种关联在 2 年后仍然显著（β=-0.0556，95%CI：-0.134，-0.001），但随后减弱。购买住房的原因与新房子或新社区的积极特征有关，这推动了这种关联（β=-0.426，95%CI：-0.786，-0.066），而购买住房的原因与以前住房或社区的特征有关，与亲属更亲近的愿望、缩小或扩大住房面积并不预示着心理健康的改善。研究结果表明，在老年时期购买住房与心理健康有一定的正相关，但相关程度较小。
