Structural changes in a Danish social housing area: The impact of forced permanent rehousing on contact frequency with general practitioner and use of antidepressants

Frederikke Sissel Blohm*, Siv Steffen Nygaard, Terese Sara Høj Jørgensen, Rikke Lund

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

There is a lack of knowledge about the health consequences of politically initiated forced permanent rehousing (FPR) of residents in social housing areas. This study investigates if FPR is associated with the contact frequency with general practitioner (GP) and the proportion of residents who use antidepressants. The study included 432 rehoused residents matched 1:2 with remaining residents and residents from a comparable neighbouring area without exposure to rehousing. For GP contact frequency, we conducted a difference-in-difference analysis while the proportion of residents who used antidepressants was investigated through descriptive statistics. We found high GP contact frequency in the three groups, but no significant differences. Further, we found a low proportion of residents who used antidepressants in all groups, but a small increase from baseline to follow-up. Our results thus suggest that FPR neither affected the rehoused residents’ GP contact frequency nor the proportion who used antidepressants.

Original languageEnglish
Article number117088
JournalSocial Science and Medicine
Volume355
Number of pages13
ISSN0277-9536
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Housing policy
  • Mental health
  • Primary healthcare
  • Public health
  • Rehousing
  • Social housing
  • Urban regeneration

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