Neighbourhood satisfaction, self-rated health, and psychological attributes: A multilevel analysis in Japan

Although earlier studies have demonstrated an association between neighbourhood perceptions and self-rated health, further study is needed regarding how this association is related to an individual's psychological attributes. Hence, we examined how self-rated health is associated with neighbourhood satisfaction after controlling for personality traits as well as other individual- and area-level covariates. We employed multilevel analysis using microdata collected from a nationwide Internet survey in Japan in 2011 (N = 8139). When controlling for personality traits, we observed that the odds for reporting poor health in response to neighbourhood dissatisfaction declined but remained highly significant. We obtained similar results when additionally controlling for sense of coherence (SOC) or replacing personality traits with it. We also found virtually no significant effect of personality traits or SOC on the sensitivity of self-rated health with neighbourhood dissatisfaction. Overall, this study indicated that the observed association between neighbourhood satisfaction and self-rated health tends to be overestimated, but cannot be fully explained by personality traits or SOC.

► We study the association between neighbourhood satisfaction and self-rated health.
► This association was significant even after controlling for personality traits.
► Replacing personality traits with sense of coherence led to similar results.