GoWell Research

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GoWell Research Learning Programme Presentation
to SURF Board 14th May 2009
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Glasgow Community Health and Well-being Research
and Learning Programme Investigating the
Processes and Impacts of Neighbourhood Change
GoWell is a collaborative partnership between the
Glasgow Centre for Population Health, the
University of Glasgow and the MRC Social and
Public Health Sciences Unit, sponsored by Glasgow
Housing Association, the Scottish Government, NHS
Health Scotland and NHS Greater Glasgow Clyde.
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Aims

• To investigate the health and wellbeing impacts
  of regeneration and housing investment.
• To understand the processes of change and
  implementation which contribute to (ve and ve)
  health and wellbeing impacts.
• To contribute to community awareness and
  understanding and enable community members to
  take part in change.
• To share best practice and knowledge.

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Research objectives

• To investigate how regeneration and housing
  investment affect individuals health and
  wellbeing
• To assess degree to which places are transformed
• To understand processes that support cohesive,
  sustainable communities
• To monitor the effects of interventions on
  area-based inequalities
• To develop and test research methods

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Human Political Capital
Physical Health
Social Community Capital
Residential Cultural Capital
Community Neighbourhood Context
Regeneration Residential Change
Social Health
Economic Capital
Fixed Capital
Mental Health Wellbeing
Environmental Capital
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Learning objectives

• To distil learning in a way that enables policy
  and implementation to take account of health and
  wellbeing
• To make opportunities to influence policy
• To facilitate communities and local structures to
  use learning in an empowering way
• To disseminate methodological developments and
  research findings

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Timescale
We are here
May 2006
2014
May 2008
1st survey
2nd survey
3rd survey
4th survey
Longitudinal studies (tracker tracer)
Focus groups
Nested studies janitors youth play areas
Empowerment and participation research
Ecological monitoring of city-wide changes
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GoWell Study Areas
Transformational Regen
Areas surrounding MSFs
Local Regeneration
Housing Improvement
Peripheral Estates
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Achieved Samples at Wave 1 and Wave 2
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Sample Sizes and Weighting

• Achieved samples of 6,000 in 2006 4,600 in 2008
• Samples weighted in the same way for both Waves.
• To make samples representative of our study areas
  and sub-areas
• Weighting by gender, age group and housing
  tenure.
• Using up-to-date information from NHS Council
  Tax records.
• To adjust for different rates of interview
  success in different areas
• Scaling factors applied to samples by sub-area
  and study area to reflect their relative
  population sizes.

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Housing
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Housing Satisfaction

• Good progress is being made on housing
  satisfaction.
• Housing satisfaction has significantly improved
  in 3 of the IATs, with high numbers of people
  very satisfied.
• In Regeneration Areas the picture is mixed with
  increases in dissatisfaction as well as in
  satisfaction- as we might expect.

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Homes Services

• Satisfaction with housing services (such as
  repairs, dealing with neighbour issues, cleaning
  common areas, lighting etc) lags behind
  satisfaction with homes in all areas.
• The difference is greatest in Housing Improvement
  Areas, where satisfaction with homes is highest.
• As with homes, satisfaction with housing services
  is lowest in regeneration areas.

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How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your
current home? How satisfied or dissatisfied are
you with the overall housing service provided by
your landlord?
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Psychosocial Benefits by Dwelling Type

• Houses perform best in providing all 8
  psychosocial benefits to occupants, followed by
  other flats (tenement deck access), and lastly
  high-rise flats.
• High-rise flats perform reasonably well on many
  items such as providing privacy, personal freedom
  and a sense of safety and retreat inside the
  home.
• High-rise flats do not perform well in providing
  feelings of relative status, personal progress,
  and a degree of fit between the dwelling-type
  and the personality and values of the occupants.

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British citizens only.
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Neighbourhoods
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Neighbourhood Environments

• Change in ratings of the environment seem to be
  associated with investment activity.
• Regeneration areas have seen significant declines
  in the quality of the environment.
• WSAs and HIAs have seen significant improvements
  in environmental quality.
• There has been little change in PEs where ratings
  are relatively low.
• All areas, apart from MTAs, have seen gains in
  the quiet and peacefulness of environments.

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Antisocial Behaviour Problems

• We asked people about 11 antisocial behaviour
  issues at both Waves. Combining the responses to
  all these questions into an index reveals that
  perceptions of ASB problems have worsened in all
  types of area.
• (0 no problems 100 all serious problems)
• ASB problems are greatest in regeneration areas.
• The biggest increase in problems was in PEs.
• There was little change in HIAs.

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Based on 11 items, coded 0not a problem,
1slight problem, 2serious problem.
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Communities
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Sense of Community

• Many more people feel they belong to an area than
  feel they are part of the community. This may
  detract from their enjoyment of where they live.
• Sense of community and enjoyment in the area are
  very low not only in regeneration areas but also
  in their surrounding areas.
• Belonging to the neighbourhood has fallen in MTAs
  (-13), but remained stable elsewhere.

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Community Cohesion Safety

• Sense of safety has declined in all areas, with
  many more people deciding not to venture out
  alone after dark.
• A quarter (24) of all respondents in 2008 said
  they never walk alone after dark.
• The biggest falls in sense of safety after dark
  were in regeneration areas.
• In MTAs half the respondents in 2008 said they
  felt very unsafe or that they never walk
  alone. This is in contrast to more people
  feeling safe in the home

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Cohesion Harmony in Diversity

• Perceptions of harmony amongst diversity have
  improved in all areas, but especially in
  regeneration areas.
• In other areas there has been a reduction of up
  to two-thirds in the number of people who
  identify their areas as comprising people from
  all the same backgrounds
• In WSAs from 16 in 2006 to 5 in 2008 in HIAs
  from 17 to 6 and in PEs down from 20 to 9

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Generally agree that This neighbourhood is a
place where people from different backgrounds get
on well together.
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Mental Wellbeing
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Positive Mental Wellbeing The WEMWBS Scale

• In 2008 we included the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental
  Wellbeing Scale for the UK, developed with NHS
  Health Scotland.
• It consists of 14 items covering things such as
  confidence, optimism, happiness, clear thinking,
  closeness to others etc.
• It is closely correlated with other emotional and
  psychological scales.
• It is being used in the Scottish Health Survey
  and the Scottish Prison Survey so there are
  national benchmarks for us to compare with.

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WEMWBS Scoring

• Respondents are asked to assess how they have
  been feeling over the past two weeks.
• People can say, for each item, that they have
  never felt positive up to feeling positive All
  of the time.
• The items are combined into a score that ranges
  from 14 to 70.
• In 2006, the mean scores for the Scottish
  population were found to be 51.3 (or 66.6) for
  men and 50.3 (64.8) for women.

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GoWell Wave 2 2008, WEMWBS Scores by Gender
Includes 3,911 respondents in 15 study
areas. Excluding asylum seekers and
refugees. Mean scores are very similar to
national norms.
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More Less Positive About What?

• Items with the most positive responses
• Deciding on things.
• Feeling loved.
• Thinking clearly.
• Feeling good about oneself.
• Feeling confident.
• Feelings about self thinking things through

• Items with the most negative responses
• Having energy to spare.
• Feeling useful.
• Feeling optimistic.
• Being interested in others.
• Being able to do things the future relations
  to others.

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WEMWBS Mean Scores

• The same pattern by IAT is evident as with the
  Quality of Life scores.
• HIAs score highest.
• Regeneration areas score lowest.
• PEs and WSAs score in the middle.
• We can also examine the scores by citizenship
  status, within regeneration areas
• The mean score for British citizens (49.32) is 4
  lower than for non-citizens (51.26).

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Mental Wellbeing Sense of Progress through
Neighbourhood

• Where you live is a barometer of how well you are
  doing in life. Feeling good about your area
  contributes to feeling good about yourself, and
  this may support mental wellbeing.
• This sense of progress through nhd improved in
  all types of area over time, apart from MTAs.
• Mental wellbeing scores appear to be associated
  with whether or not people think that Living in
  this neighbourhood makes me feel that Im doing
  well in life
• The mean WEMWBS score ranges by 19 across the
  responses to this neighbourhood statement.

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British citizens only, all study areas
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Mental Wellbeing Neighbourhood Empowerment

• Feeling empowered locally appears to be
  associated with mental wellbeing.
• We asked people three questions about local
  empowerment
• Could they influence decisions affecting their
  local area, on their own or with others
• Were people in the area able to find ways to
  improve things in they want
• Were the council and local service providers
  responsive to peoples views.
• We created a local empowerment score from all
  three answers.
• This shows a positive relationship with mental
  wellbeing scores, with a range of 10 points or
  18.

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British citizens only, all study areas
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Mental Wellbeing Social Capital

• Local social capital is appears to be positively
  associated with mental wellbeing. Community
  interaction, and activities that make people feel
  they belong may therefore be important for mental
  wellbeing.
• We asked about peoples sense of belonging,
  feeling part of the community, and enjoyment of
  living in the area.
• We also asked about interactions with neighbours
  knowing them talking to them visiting them
  exchanging things with them.
• Both of these dimensions of social capital were
  associated with mental wellbeing.

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British citizens only, all study areas
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Human Capital

• Being active is crucial to mental wellbeing.
• People living alone may need support.
• Younger adults have more positive mental health,
  with the divide being around age 30.
• Single adults (below or above retirement age)
  have lower mental wellbeing than people in other
  types of household.
• People who are occupied full time, either with a
  job or in further or higher education, have the
  highest mental wellbeing.
• People who are long-term sick or disabled and
  without a job have very low mental wellbeing.

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Summary Mental Wellbeing

• Our new questions on quality of life and on
  positive mental wellbeing display patterns across
  Intervention Area Types that are consistent with
  assessments of area quality.
• There are some interesting potential
  relationships between mental wellbeing and
  place-based psychological measures (e.g. sense of
  community, progress and empowerment).
• Being active in some way is very important.

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Next Steps

• Produce a report on area change across the
  different levels of GoWell study sites.
• Investigate some issues in more depth, both in
  the area change report and in separate articles
  and briefing papers, e.g. the relationships
  between feeling empowered, being active and
  mental wellbeing.
• Arrange focus groups within some of the study
  areas for late summer this year, again to explore
  selected issues in more depth.
• Plan GoWell Wave 3.

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www.gowellonline.com