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Caroline Barratt
University of Essex
With thanks to Professor Gill Green,
Dr Ewen Speed and Paul Price
Mental health and houses in multiple
occupation: the challenge of turning
research into practice
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Background
• Knowledge Transfer Partnership
• Set up by the Head of Environmental Services
• Linking the university and local government
• Research and interagency working
• Addressed gaps in local knowledge and housing research
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Methods
• 20 participants were interviewed (2 had recently moved into
self contained accommodation).
• 6 participants were interviewed twice and engaged in
participatory photography .
• Interviews focused on current experience of HMO life but also
explored their life history and how they came to live in HMO.
• Interviews were transcribed and thematically coded using
MAXQDA software.
Openphoto.net
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Results
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‘I couldn’t use the bathroom facilities, because
I can’t get in and out of the bath, yeah, so I was
having to have a wash by the sink. It was
starting to get me down, you know, really
getting me down…If I hadn’t moved into this
room, I think I’d probably be…back in Forest
View now [local psychiatric hospital].’John, aged 56
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‘With regard to people in bedsits, they are the underclass,
they’re usually unemployed , on drugs or alcoholics, most
are likely to be in contact with the law – on the wrong side
of it – at some stage. They’re usually the people that
nobody wants particularly…’ Anna, aged approx 50
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‘I get very lonely on my own, and that’s why I suffer
depression, but you’ve always got people about here, you
know. If you’re ill, like, people will always knock on your door
and say ‘Oh do you want a newspaper?’ John, aged 56
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Circumstances of move to a bedsit
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‘…split up with the wife, who took everything,
I went to live with a friend…and he died, so I
had nowhere to live. So this is why I moved
here…I wouldn’t advise people to rent bedsits
but a lot of people have no choice’
Richard, aged 70
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Control Identity
Safety
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‘He’s knocked on my door, and his
face is just a mass of blood and he’
got cuts here and, and apparently
they started scrapping with each
other…one of them got hold of a
knife and [he] got the worst of it.
That really put the frighteners on
me, because, as you get older, you
can’t look after yourself like you
used to…So for a couple of nights I
was frightened to walk from my
room down the corridor to use the
toilet’Anthony, aged 56
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‘Err, it would mean a lot…You
can feel more relaxed then. At
the moment…it’s pretty much a
week to week thing, you’re
existing week to week and it
depends what the management
say…They come up with
different rules and you don’t
necessarily agree with them but
you’ve got to abide by them…So
you’d be master of your own
destiny with your own place you
know? It’s a more permanent
place you feel more secure, you
can lie down roots.’
Adam, aged 42
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‘You’re not in a bedsit
because you want to be -
you’d rather have a house
or a flat to go home to but
because of what you are
that’s how you end up’Tony, aged 47
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So what should we do?
� Organise drop in services in large HMOs
� Information pack for landlords on seeking support
� Stronger relationships between agencies, landlords and
local authorities
� Good models of bedsit management explored and
publicised
� Tackling demand?
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Research and
evidence
Policy and
practice
A simple idea...
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Evidence
Political
context
Links
External influences
...but more complex reality
Adapted from Court et al. (2005). See also Couch et al. (2012) for discussion in relation to environmental health.
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Knowledge and imagination
‘Knowledge is when a sense of uncertainty is reduced
sufficiently to take action...we accept when we do act
that we do so on the basis that the knowledge we
employ might later be proved false’(Rayner and Lang 2012: 331-332)
‘The task is to produce knowledge which helps frame
and guide policy and action through or over the gap
between evidence, policy and practice.’(Rayner and Lang 2012: 333)
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‘It [public health imagination] is being sufficiently
grounded to dare to think outside conventions...It
dares to imagine a world operating within
different values, goals and norms’
(Rayner and Lang 2012: 326)
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References
Barratt C. 2012. ‘Understanding the relationship between housing and mental health through the
experience of bedsit residents in a seaside town’. Presentation at the University of York, Housing Studies
Association Conference, April 2012. Online at http://www.york.ac.uk/chp/hsa/spring12/papers.htm
[Accessed 12th April 2013].
Couch R, Stewart J, Barratt C, Dhesi S and A Page. 2012. Evidence, research and publication: a guide for
environmental health professionals. Ebook: Lulu.
Court J, Hovland I and J Young. 2005. ‘Cross cutting issues and implications: promoting more infromed
international development policy’ in Court J, Hovland I and J Young. Eds. Bridging Research and Policy in
Development: Evidence and the Change Process. ITDG Publishing Ltd: Bourton-on-Dunsmore,
Warwickshire.
Evans G, Wells N and A Moch. 2003. ‘Housing and mental health: A review of the evidence and a
methodological and conceptual critique’. Journal of Social Issues 59(3): 475-500.
Rayner, G and T Lang. 2012. Ecological Public Health. Routledge: Oxon
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Caroline Barratt
University of Essex
With thanks to Professor Gill Green,
Dr Ewen Speed and Paul Price
Mental health and houses in multiple
occupation: the challenge of turning
research into practice