Homeownership and its association with prevalence of chronic health conditions: Study findings

Content Editor: Dr. Manjeet

May 30, 2024 at 2:00:00 PM

Research finding, Chronic disease, Socioeconomic status

Researchers analyzed data from the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, including 401,958 participants.
They assessed the association between homeownership and self-reported diagnoses of diabetes, asthma, cancer, coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and kidney disease.
Logistic regression was used to adjust for variables such as age, sex, race and ethnicity, education, employment, and income, computing odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
The results of the analysis are as follows:

Influencing Factors: Age, marital status, education, and income significantly influenced homeownership.
Odds of Homeownership: Increased with age, peaking at 17.45 (95% CI, 16.21–18.79) for adults aged 65 or older. Non-Hispanic White adults had the highest odds (OR = 3.34; 95% CI, 3.18–3.52).
Chronic Health Conditions: Homeowners had a lower prevalence of chronic health conditions, especially among those aged 45 to 64 years.
After accounting for age, sex, race and ethnicity, renters were more likely to have chronic health conditions compared to homeowners.

The study reveals that- homeownership predicts the lower prevalence of several chronic health conditions.
Public health initiatives should prioritize housing-related interventions to improve overall population health.

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