the impact of regional and neighbourhood deprivation on physical health in germany a multilevel study影响的地区和社区剥夺身体健康在德国一个多层次的研究.pdfVIP

Voigtländer et al. BMC Public Health 2010, 10:403 /1471-2458/10/403 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access The impact of regional and neighbourhood deprivation on physical health in Germany: a multilevel study * Sven Voigtländer , Ursula Berger, Oliver Razum Abstract Background: There is increasing evidence that individual health is at least partly determined by neighbourhood and regional factors. Mechanisms, however, remain poorly understood, and evidence from Germany is scant. This study explores whether regional as well as neighbourhood deprivation are associated with physical health and to what extent this association can be explained by specific neighbourhood exposures. Methods: Using 2004 data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) merged with regional and neighbourhood characteristics, we fitted multilevel linear regression models with subjective physical health, as measured by the SF-12, as the dependent variable. The models include regional and neighbourhood proxies of deprivation (i.e. regional unemployment quota, average purchasing power of the street section) as well as specific neighbourhood exposures (i.e. perceived air pollution). Individual characteristics including socioeconomic status and health behaviour have been controlled for. Results: This study finds a significant association between area deprivation and physical health which is independent of compositional factors and consistent across different spatial scales. Furthermore the association between neighbourhood deprivation and physical health can be partly explained by specific features of the neighbourhood environment. Among these perceived air pollution shows the strongest association with physical health (-2.4 points for very strong and -1.5 points for strong disturbance by air pollution, standard error (SE) = 0.