Determinants of Deteriorated Self-Perceived Health Status among Informal Settlement Dwellers in South Africa

Self-perceived health (SPH) is a widely used measure of health amongst individuals that indicates an individual’s overall subjective perception of their physical or mental health status. As rural to urban migration increases, the health of individuals within informal settlements becomes an increasing concern as these people are at high health and safety risk due to poor housing structures, overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of services. This paper aimed to explore factors related to deteriorated SPH status among informal settlement dwellers in South Africa. This study used data from the first national representative Informal Settlements Survey in South Africa conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in 2015. Stratified random sampling was applied to select informal settlements and households to participate in the study. Multivariate logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression analyses were performed to assess factors affecting deteriorated SPH among the informal settlement dwellers in South Africa. Informal settlement dwellers aged 30 to 39 years old (OR = 0.332 95%CI [0.131–0.840], p < 0.05), those with ZAR 5501 and more household income per month (OR = 0.365 95%CI [0.144–0.922], p < 0.05) and those who reported using drugs (OR = 0.069 95%CI [0.020–0.240], p < 0.001) were significantly less likely to believe that their SPH status had deteriorated compared to the year preceding the survey than their counterparts. Those who reported always running out of food (OR = 3.120 95%CI [1.258–7.737], p < 0.05) and those who reported having suffered from illness or injury in the past month preceding the survey (OR = 3.645 95%CI [2.147–6.186], p < 0.001) were significantly more likely to believe that their SPH status had deteriorated compared to the year preceding the survey than their counterparts. In addition, those who were employed were significantly (OR = 1.830 95%CI [1.001–3.347], p = 0.05) more likely to believe that their SPH status had deteriorated compared to the year preceding the survey than those who were unemployed with neutral SPH as a base category. Overall, the results from this study point to the importance of age, employment, income, lack of food, drug use and injury or illness as key determinants of SPH amongst informal settlement dwellers in South Africa. Given the rapid increasing number of informal settlements in the country, our findings do have implications for better understanding the drivers of deteriorating health in informal settlements. It is therefore recommended that these key factors be incorporated into future planning and policy development aimed at improving the standard of living and health of these vulnerable residents.