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Previous research has identified how the household environment, work and family composition can determine a person’s well-being, physical and mental health. One strand of such research has focused on household characteristics, although this has mostly been applied within the continental European context and only rarely within the context of the UK, especially Northern Ireland. Understanding the household structure based on its social, work and family composition and its impact on mental health/health would provide valuable evidence for practitioners, advocacy groups and local government.
One approach which has previously been applied to better understand household typologies has been Latent Class Analysis (LCA). This has already been successfully applied to other areas to uncover household typologies or subgroups in order to predict food poverty and deprivation. However, much less research has been undertaken using this approach to understand how an individual’s household typology can influence their mental health and health status.
The overall aim of this research is to identify and compare typologies of households within Northern Ireland by employing the NILS data (Census 2001) and how these typologies impact on health and mental health of residents (Census 2011). More specifically, this study will:
create typologies of households using social environmental, work and family data from the 2001 Census
explore how household typologies impact individuals’ self-reported health and mental health status in the 2011 Census.
