Source
doi:10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101995 — original publication (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Scoping review · Cooperative housing & health · 35 studies · 12 databases · 2004–2024
Key claims
- 35 studies included from 7,224 initial records across 12 databases (WoS, PubMed, SageJournals, CINAHL, ProQuest, Scopus, PsycArticles, Redalyc, Dialnet, Scielo, Biblat); PRISMA guidelines applied; English and Spanish literature.
- Study design breakdown: 48.57% qualitative, 17.14% mixed-method, 8.57% quantitative, 14.29% literature reviews, 11.43% unspecified; predominance of qualitative studies limits quantitative synthesis.
- Countries: Spain 31.4%, Canada 22.9%, USA 14.3%; sample sizes range 13–296 (mean 89.56); 85.7% peer-reviewed.
- Health outcome frequency (Fig. 2): social support 27 studies, physical health 13, psychological health 9, quality of life 9, wellbeing 8, mental health 4, emotional wellbeing 4 — social support is the dominant documented outcome of cooperative housing, not physical infrastructure.
- Mental and emotional health: cooperative housing enhances social support and cohesion through mutual aid and collective living arrangements; fosters sense of belonging, autonomy, and collective decision-making; reduces stress, loneliness, and emotional discomfort; enhances emotional resilience and social satisfaction.
- Physical health: stable, safe living conditions reduce housing-related stress and improve overall well-being; cooperative models improve physical health outcomes particularly for vulnerable populations and low-income families.
- Healthy aging: senior and intergenerational cooperative models reduce isolation, foster social bonds, and democratize caregiving; Weeks et al. (2023) demonstrate emotional resilience promotion during COVID-19 pandemic; Keller Garganté & Ezquerra Samper (2021) — cooperative housing improves quality of life for people with disabilities.
- Negative impacts documented: energy poverty and infrastructure deficiencies; governance conflicts; economic barriers (high entry costs, maintenance fees, insufficient government support); slow decision-making when consensus is not reached; perceived loss of individual autonomy when personal preferences are subsumed by collective process.
- Elements enabling health outcomes: affordability and economic stability reduce financial stress → healthier lifestyles; autonomy through shared decision-making empowers residents; feminist-perspective models (Michelini et al. 2021) reduce economic dependency among women; intergenerational projects strengthen social bonds.
- Spanish grant-of-use cooperative (cesión de uso): residents entitled to housing without right to sell or profit; prevents market speculation; ensures permanent affordability; prioritizes collective governance and solidarity economy — an advanced model for long-term community viability distinct from ownership-based cohousing.
- Selection bias: cooperative housing tends to attract participants with higher education, social capital, and prior community engagement — limiting generalizability to structurally marginalized groups; equity-oriented recruitment and governance design is needed.
- Key cases: La Borda (Barcelona) and Quimper Village (USA) — transformative affordability + autonomy + mutual support; Tannery Court Co-operative Ltd (New Brunswick, Canada) — integrated social services for residents below poverty line.
- Limitations: English + Spanish only; manual data extraction introduces selection bias; cross-sectional study dominance prevents causality assessment; heterogeneous methodologies prevent meta-analysis.
Research targets
Documents to retrieve
- [RT_049 — RESOLVED → LIT_080]
Lubik & Kosatsky (2019) — public health should promote co-operative housing and cohousing; Canadian policy argument for cooperative housing as public health intervention.Ingested as LIT_080 (abstract only; body paywalled). Fed I10; I05 dropped (no governance content in the accessible text). → I10, thesis
Connections
Links to
Sources (1): LIT_080
Referenced by
SSI indicators (3): I01: Financial & Economic Self-Sufficiency · I05: Good Governance & Transparency · I10: Psychological Self-Sufficiency
Sources (1): LIT_080