Are housing tenure and car access still associated with health? A repeat cross-sectional study of UK adults over a 13-year period

Background: It is usually assumed that housing tenure and car access are associated with health simply because they are acting as markers for social class or income and wealth. However, previous studies conducted in the late 1990s found that these household assets were associated with health independently of social class and income. Here, we set out to examine if this is still the case. Methods: We use data from our 2010 postal survey of a random sample of adults (n=2092) in 8 local authority areas in the West of Scotland. Self-reported health measures included limiting longstanding illness (LLSI), general health over the last year and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Results: We found a statistically significant relationship between housing tenure and all 4 health measures, regardless of the inclusion of social class or income as controls. Compared with owner occupiers, social renters were more likely to report ill-health (controlling for social class—LLSI OR: 3.24, general health OR: 2.82, anxiety η2: 0.031, depression η2: 0.048, controlling for income—LLSI OR: 3.28, general health OR: 2.82, anxiety η2: 0.033, depression η2: 0.057) (p<0.001 for all models). Car ownership was independently associated with depression and anxiety, with non-owners at higher risk of both (controlling for income—anxiety η2: 0.010, depression η2: 0.023, controlling for social class—anxiety η2: 0.013, depression η2: 0.033) (p<0.001 for all models). Conclusions: Our results show that housing tenure and car ownership are still associated with health, after taking known correlates (age, sex, social class, income) into account. Further research is required to unpack some of the features of these household assets such as the quality of the dwelling and access to and use of different forms of transport to determine what health benefits or disbenefits they may be associated with in different contexts

Lack of agreement between measured and self-reported distance from public green parks in Glasgow, Scotland

<p><b>Background:</b></p> <p>Reviews have reported mixed findings for associations between physical activity and proximity to a range of environmental resources. Initially most studies used self reported proximity, but more are now using GIS techniques to measure proximity objectively. We know little about the extent of agreement between self reported and directly measured proximity of the same resource.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b></p> <p>We used previously collected data in a community survey in Glasgow in which 658 respondents aged around 40 and 60 were asked whether they lived within half a mile of a public park. We compared their answers with GIS measures of whether there was a park within a half mile service area of their home (and whether their home was within a half mile crow fly buffer of a park).</p> <p><b>Results:</b></p> <p>Agreement was poor; percentage agreement between measured network distance and reported residence within 0.5 miles of a park was 62.0%, and the kappa value was 0.095. Agreement was no higher than poor in any socio-demographic subgroup, or when using crow fly buffers instead of service areas.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b></p> <p>One should be cautious about assuming that respondents' self reports of proximity to a resource are a valid proxy for actual distance, or vice versa. Further research is needed to establish whether actual or self-reported proximity predict physical activity or other behaviours, and if so which is the strongest predictor. Further, qualitative study, also needs to examine the basis of people's judgements about the location of resources, and the possibility that these are shaped by their social and personal significance.</p&gt

The food retail environment and area deprivation in Glasgow City

It has previously been suggested that deprived neighbourhoods within modern cities have poor access to general amenities, for example, fewer food retail outlets. Here we examine the distribution of food retailers by deprivation in the City of Glasgow, UK.We obtained a list of 934 food retailers in Glasgow, UK, in 2007, and mapped these at address level. We categorised small areas (data zones) into quintiles of area deprivation using the 2006 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation Income sub-domain score. We computed mean number of retailers per 1000 residents per data zone, and mean network distance to nearest outlet from data zone centroid, for all retailers combined and for each of seven categories of retailer separately (i.e. bakers, butchers, fruit and vegetable sellers, fishmongers, convenience stores, supermarkets and delicatessens).The most deprived quintile (of areas) had the greatest mean number of total food retailers per 1000 residents while quintile 1 (least deprived) had the least, and this difference was statistically significant (Chi-square p < 0.01). The closest mean distance to the nearest food retailer was within quintile 3 while the furthest distance was within quintile 1, and this was also statistically significant (Chi-square p < 0.01). There was variation in the distribution of the seven different types of food retailers, and access to amenities depended upon the type of food retailer studied and whether proximity or density was measured. Overall the findings suggested that deprived neighbourhoods within the City of Glasgow did not necessarily have fewer food retail outlets

Measuring dopant concentrations in compensated p-type crystalline silicon via iron-acceptor pairing

We present a method for measuring the concentrations of ionized acceptors and donors in compensated p-type silicon at room temperature.Carrier lifetimemeasurements on silicon wafers that contain minute traces of iron allow the iron-acceptor pair formation rate to be determined, which in turn allows the acceptor concentration to be calculated. Coupled with an independent measurement of the resistivity and a mobility model that accounts for majority and minority impurity scatterings of charge carriers, it is then possible to also estimate the total concentration of ionized donors. The method is valid for combinations of different acceptor and donor species.D.M. is supported by an Australian Research Council fellowship. L.J.G. would like to acknowledge SenterNovem for support

Vortex Lattice Structure of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov Superconductors

In superconductors with singlet pairing, the inhomogeneous Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state is expected to be stabilized by a large Zeeman splitting. We develop an efficient method to evaluate the Landau-Ginzburg free energies of FFLO-state vortex lattices and use it to simplify the considerations that determine the optimal vortex configuration at different points in the phasediagram. We demonstrate that the order parameter spatial profile is completely determined, up to a uniform translation, by its Landau level index n and the vortex Lattice structure and derive an explicit expression for the order parameter spatial profile that can be used to determine n from experimental data.Comment: 6 pages with one embedded color figure. Minor changes. Final version as publishe

Bilayer Quantum Hall Systems at Filling Factor \nu=2: An Exact Diagonalisation Study

We present an exact diagonalisation study of bilayer quantum Hall systems at a filling factor of two in the spherical geometry. We find the high-Zeeman-coupling phase boundary of the broken symmetry canted antiferromagnet is given exactly by previous Hartree-Fock mean-field theories, but that the state's stability at weak Zeeman coupling has been qualitatively overestimated. In the absence of interlayer tunneling, degeneracies occur between total spin multiplets due to the Hamiltonian's invariance under independent spin-rotations in top and bottom two-dimensional electron layers.Comment: Some remarks added in the discussion of the phase diagram, and some typos corrected. Version to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Correlations in Two-Dimensional Vortex Liquids

We report on a high temperature perturbation expansion study of the superfluid-density spatial correlation function of a Ginzburg-Landau-model superconducting film in a magnetic field. We have derived a closed form which expresses the contribution to the correlation function from each graph of the perturbation theory in terms of the number of Euler paths around appropriate subgraphs. We have enumerated all graphs appearing out to 10-th order in the expansion and have evaluated their contributions to the correlation function. Low temperature correlation functions, obtained using Pad\'{e} approximants, are in good agreement with Monte Carlo simulation results and show that the vortex-liquid becomes strongly correlated at temperatures well above the vortex solidification temperature.Comment: 18 pages (RevTeX 3.0) and 4 figures, available upon request, IUCM93-01