Relationships between housing and health for older private renters: evidence from a pilot study in Australia
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Petersen, Maree
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Increasing numbers of older people seek to age at home in their community in western countries including Australia. Whilst this aligns with community aged care policy, the nature and suitability of their housing to enable ageing in place, receives less policy attention. The increasing representation of older tenants in the private rental market, with limited resources and precarious tenure highlights the need to understand ageing in place in a privately rented home. This study aimed to explore the relationships between housing accessibility, financial status, health, and independence for older Australians renting privately. Home visits were conducted with 27 older adults, where the SF8, ADL Staircase, the Housing Enabler, the Financial Capability Questionnaire, and the 30:40 indicator of housing stress were completed. This preliminary research found that older private renters lived in inaccessible homes, with high scores on the Housing Enabler (mean = 185) indicating poor access. Inaccessible housing was correlated with worse physical health, lower perceived independence, less independence in instrumental activities of daily living, and activities of daily living being difficult to perform. Older tenants living with higher levels of financial disadvantage were also found to be less independent and have poorer mental health. The research reveals important policy implications for community aged care, housing, and social security, including removing barriers to enable free and easy access to home modifications for older renters experiencing financial disadvantage. Future research should examine a nationally representative, diverse sample of owners, private renters, and social housing tenants to further understand the influence of the home environment, including tenure, on the health and well-being of older adults as they age in place.
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Journal of Housing and the Built Environment
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38
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3
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© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Architecture
Urban and regional planning
Human geography
Science & Technology
Social Sciences
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Environmental Studies
Regional & Urban Planning
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Aplin, T; Petersen, M, Relationships between housing and health for older private renters: evidence from a pilot study in Australia, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 2023, 38 (3), pp. 1869-1888