Study authors from the Rostock Centre for Research on Demographic Change, who have spent 15 years interviewing test persons aged between 18 and 93 about their living environment with regard to health effects, conclude that a poor living environment leads to health impairments. The University of Groningen in the Netherlands also participated in the recently published representative study. According to the study, 4,600 people were interviewed between 1999 and 2014. According to the authors, high environmental pollution and also a poor to mediocre infrastructure are to blame for the effects of health inequalities in society. Taking appointments with doctors, but also the poor accessibility of shopping facilities are part of the infrastructure. People with a higher level of education and higher income, on the other hand, generally have a better living environment in which they feel comfortable, hence the physical limitations of people in a poor living environment. According to the current state of research, a poorly designed infrastructure leads to poorer participation in the social life of people. Therefore, more attention would have to be paid to the living environment to which people want to move in order not to get health problems. According to the study, which is one of only a few to deal with changes in the living environment, this applies primarily to residential areas with increased poverty, but also to unrenovated high-rise housing estates. Other factors such as income, working hours, nicotine consumption and other influences that change the state of health were taken into account in the evaluation and eliminated.
