Browsing by Author "Dweik, Imad"

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    Housing as a social determinant of health: A closer examination of mental and physical health and housing affordability
    (University of New Brunswick, 2024-09) Dweik, Imad; Woodhall-Melnik, Julia
    Canada is among the wealthiest nations in the world, yet despite its wealth, many low-to-moderate-income households struggle to afford basic needs such as housing and food. Subsidized housing is offered for renters who struggle with housing unaffordability; however, the demand for this housing is high and growing, which results in long wait times for access to subsidized housing. These waitlists are long and differ in socioeconomic status, stability, and health and supportive services needs and include households who are unhoused and those who are housed in unaffordable and/or precarious accommodations. Despite the varied economic, social, and housing statuses of households on subsidized housing waitlists, there is a dearth of evidence that comprehensively characterizes their particular challenges and needs. Furthermore, the impacts of subsidized housing as a social determinant of health are still being debated and additional research on mechanisms that connect housing to physical and mental health is needed. This dissertation presents a series of manuscripts summarize existing evidence on the relationship between subsidized housing and depression and anxiety, and subsidized housing and physical health. The final paper addresses the question: is being unhoused associated with different scores of depression and psychological distress than being precariously housed? My analysis indicates that both precarious renters and unhoused individuals experience comparably high levels of depression, whereas the unhoused group had higher levels of distress (p =.004). The findings indicate that unstable and unaffordable housing is associated with depression in both renters and unhoused individuals. Further, they display that both groups experience social and economic precarity, which, from a social determinants of health perspective, may be improved through access to affordable and adequate housing. Ultimately, the findings lend support to human rights-based arguments on the state of affordable housing provision in Canada, in that the current nature of housing policies do not provide access to affordable housing for all those who are in need. Hence, I conclude with a call to reimagine systems that are designed to address housing affordability pressures with the goal of providing affordable housing for all those in need.