Open AccessDoes the Housing Unit's Type and Size Affect Health?
Author(s) -
Yuval Arbel,
Chaim Fialkoff,
Amichai Kerner
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
business and economic research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-4860
DOI - 10.5296/ber.v9i1.14125
Subject(s) - suburbanization , marital status , affect (linguistics) , unit (ring theory) , geography , body mass index , demography , obesity , demographic economics , socioeconomics , environmental health , gerontology , psychology , medicine , sociology , economics , population , mathematics education , communication , pathology
Recent medical studies have examined ways to offer more spatial planning opportunities to increase a person's level of physical activity. These studies demonstrate a decreasing prevalence of obesity in denser and less car-oriented communities with mixed land uses. Yet, apart from these environmental effects, the impact of characteristics of the housing unit itself (e.g., type and size), combined with socio-demographic variables (e.g., the number of children, marital status, place of birth, country of origin, and gender) on the body mass index (BMI) has not been examined previously. Based on a two-year longitudinal survey of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the current study examines this potential implication based on the BMI measure. Stratification by gender indicates opposite effects of suburbanization on projected BMI of women and men, who move from smaller condominiums in multi-family buildings to single family units and to larger apartments.