DEPRESSION, LONELINESS, AND HEALTH IN AN ADVERSE LIVING ENVIRONMENT -A STUDY OF BEDSPACE RESIDENTS IN HONG-KONG

Issues concerning deleterious effects of an adverse living environment , characterized by crowded, noisy, and dirty conditions, have been deb atable. One way out of this debate is delineating paths through which the living environment affects outcome variables. The resident's perce ption of the environment and social relation may lead to such paths. W hile past studies tended to demonstrate the mediating role of social s upport, they employed samples of college students only. By contrast, t he present study investigates the mediating processes with a sample of 122 bedspace residents in Hong Kong. Results of hierarchical modeling illustrate that the adverse living environment affected the resident' s psychosocial well-being indirectly. Notably, the objective living en vironment was related to the resident's perception of the environment, which in rum was related to social relations, characterized by social problems and social support. The perception and social relations were then related to the resident's depressive affect and loneliness. Howe ver, the adverse living environment did not have significant direct an d mediated effects on the resident's self-assessed health. Besides, th is study reveals that stressful status, including having a criminal re cord, being divorced, and the duration of unemployment, tended to be d eleterious to the resident's psychosocial and physical well-being.