BMC Public Health 2007, 7:285 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/285 Table 1: Characteristics of respondents to the Caerphilly Health and Social Needs Study (CHSNS) Men (n = 4,877) Women (n = 6,015) 3079 (63.1%) 1770 (36.3%) 29 (0.6%) Mean= 48.3; SD = 15.2 1143 (23.4%) 420 (8.6%) 1705 (35.0%) 1109 (22.7%) 177 (3.6%) 323 (6.6%) 2644 (54.2%) 176 (3.6%) 999 (20.5%) 669 (13.7%) 160 (3.3%) 229 (4.7%) 3980 (81.6%) 822 (16.9%) 75 (1.5%) Mean = 3.71; SD = 0.79 Mean = 1.90; SD = 0.47 Mean = 1.56; SD = 0.42 Mean = 3.63; SD = 0.67 4029 (67.0%) 1939 (32.2%) 47 (0.8%) Mean= 46.4; SD = 15.2 1276 (21.2%) 1701 (28.3%) 501(8.3%) 1588 (26.4%) 495 (8.2%) 454 (7.5%) 2903 (48.3%) 113 (1.9%) 1190 (19.8%) 647 (10.8%) 841 (14.0%) 321 (5.3%) 4723 (78.5%) 1188 (19.8%) 104 (1.7%) Mean = 3.75; SD = 0.82 Mean = 1.89; SD = 0.47 Mean = 1.57; SD = 0.42 Mean = 3.67; SD = 0.69 Health Outcome Self Rated Health Socio-demographics Age Social class Employment Status Household Tenure Excellent/(Very) Good Fair/Poor Missing values Class I and II Class III NM Class III M Class IV and V Other Missing values Employed Unemployed Retired Disability Other Missing values Home owner Non home owner Missing values Neighbourhood perceptions (1) Access to amenities (scale 1–5) Neighbourhood quality (scale 1–3) Neighbourhood disorder (scale 1–3) Social cohesion (scale 1–5) (1) Higher scores represent a more negative evaluation of the neighbourhood. manual), and 'other' (e.g., armed forces). The employ- ment status variable had five categories: employed, unem- ployed, retired, disabled, and other (i.e., student and looking after home or children). Household tenure com- pared homeownership (with or without mortgage) with non-homeownership (renting from housing association/ trust or private landlord and living rent free). The neighbourhood perception variables that were con- sidered in this study were: (1) access to amenities, (2) neigh- bourhood problems, and (3) social cohesion. Access to amenities was measured by asking respondents how well placed their home is for ten amenities, i.e., get- ting to work, job opportunities, food stores with fresh fruit and vegetables, your doctor's surgery, the nearest hospital with a casualty department, schools, libraries, public transport, general shopping, and leisure facilities. People could respond using a five-point scale with the fol- lowing categories: 1: "very well placed", 2: "fairly well placed", 3: "average", 4: "not very well placed", and 5: "not at all well placed". Because the first two items had large numbers of missing values they were omitted from further analyses. We summed the remaining eight items, which formed an internally consistent scale (Cronbach's α = 0.86). Neighbourhood problems were measured by asking people to indicate how much of a problem 14 issues are "in this area" [34]. People could respond using a three-point scale: 1: "not a problem", 2: "some problem", and 3: "serious problem". A principal components analysis with Varimax rotation produced two clearly interpretable components. The first component included 'social nuisances', such as: litter and rubbish, uneven and dangerous pavements, nui- sance from dogs, and noise. The second component reflected more serious crime in the neighbourhood, such as: vandalism, assaults and muggings, burglaries, and dis- carded needles and syringes. The components were labelled as neighbourhood quality and neighbourhood disor- der, respectively. The items that loaded highly on the two respective components were summed to form internally consistent scales (Cronbach's α = 0.78 and 0.77, respec- tively). Social cohesion was measured by asking respondents to what extent they agree with eight statements derived from an adapted version of Buckner's Neighbourhood Cohe- Page 3 of 10 (page number not for citation purposes)