Longitudinal study of housing for the promotion of health and well-being: Using a covariance structure model to identify the causal relationships between satisfaction of living environment, stress and chronic low back pain

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the casual relationship for from longitudinal research with health and living environment. Based on a questionnaire longitudinal survey administered online to Japanese women 3054 in 2011 and 2013, about 1500 people with a history of low back pain, covariance structure analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between satisfaction of living environment, stress-related health and chronic low back pain. The models showed that there was a causal effect from "stress and fatigue" to "chronic back pain", while a second causal effect was shown from "satisfaction of living environment" to "stress and fatigue."Taken together, this suggests that "satisfaction of living environment" influences levels of "stress and fatigue" which in turns manifests itself as "chronic low back pain".