Development and validation of an instrument to measure perceived neighbourhood quality in Taiwan.

STUDY OBJECTIVE s: Social epidemiologists have hypothesised that neighbourhood quality may exert an important contextual influence on mental and physical health. However, validated instruments do not exist for measuring neighbourhood quality in Taiwan. A self reported instrument to measure perceived neighbourhood quality in Taiwan was developed and tested. DESIGN Community survey. SETTING Southern Taiwan, including the metropolitan Kaohsiung area and eight surrounding communities, representing urban, suburban, and rural districts. PARTICIPANTS A total of 1084 residents, aged 18 to 75, were surveyed during 1999 to 2000. MAIN RESULTS Using factor analysis with varimax rotation, three subscales explained 54.8% of the variance in our 15 item Neighbourhood Quality Index: perceived social capital (Cronbach alpha=0.84), perceived security (alpha=0.78), and adequacy of services and facilities (alpha=0.67). Lower perceived neighbourhood social capital (odds ratio, OR, 1.26; 95% CI: 1.21 to 1.32), lower neighbourhood security (OR 1.37; 95% CI: 1.26 to 1.48), and inadequate neighbourhood services and facilities (OR 1.17; 95% CI: 1.06 to 1.28) were all related to higher residential dissatisfaction. CONCLUSIONS A Neighbourhood Quality Index was developed for use in Taiwan with good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as convergent validity. Future studies will examine the association between this index and measures of individual mental and physical health.