Reductions in the United Kingdom's Government Housing Benefit and symptoms of depression in low-income households

Reeves, Aaron ORCID: 0000-0001-9114-965X, Clair, Amy, McKee, Martin and Stuckler, David (2016) Reductions in the United Kingdom's Government Housing Benefit and symptoms of depression in low-income households. American Journal of Epidemiology, 184 (6). pp. 421-429. ISSN 0002-9262

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Abstract

Housing security is an important determinant ofmental ill health.We used a quasinatural experiment to evaluate this association, comparing the prevalence of mental ill health in the United Kingdom before and after the government’s April 2011 reduction in financial support for low-income persons who rent private-sector housing (mean reduction of approximately £1,220 ($2,315) per year).Data came fromtheUnited Kingdom’s Annual Population Survey, a repeated quarterly cross-sectional survey. We focused our analysis on renters in the private sector, disaggregating data between an intervention group receiving the government’s Housing Benefit (n = 36,859) and a control group not receiving the Housing Benefit (n = 142,205). The main outcome was a binary measure of self-reported mental health problems. After controlling for preexisting time trends, we observed that between April 2011 and March 2013, the prevalence of depressive symptoms among private renters receiving the Housing Benefit increased by 1.8 percentage points (95% confidence interval: 1.0, 2.7) compared with those not receiving the Housing Benefit. Our models estimated that approximately 26,000 (95% confidence interval: 14,000, 38,000) people newly experienced depressive symptoms in association with the cuts to the Housing Benefit.We conclude that reducing housing support to low-inc

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/
Additional Information:	© 2016 The Authors © CC BY 4.0
Divisions:	International Inequalities Institute
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Date Deposited:	14 Sep 2016 09:17
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 00:33
Projects:	313590-HRES
Funders:	Wellcome Trust, European Research Council
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/67723

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