Environmental Density and Its Effect on Health and Quality of Life

The sample comprised of a total of 200 residents of Gorakhpur city. Amongst them100 were residing in the two densely populated areas of Gorakhpur (high density) namely, Urdu bazaar and Alinagar and 100 participants were residing in new residential colonies and societies (low density). They had been given the questionnaires to assess health and quality of life, as well as some open ended questions werealso asked. The findings suggested significant differences in groups in evaluating quality of life and health status. The high density residents had reported more physical and psychological symptoms and poor quality of life than low density residents. Although the high density residents had compromised health and quality of life but they had not been ready to change their accommodation to less dense areas. The reasons given are-proximity to market, schools, railway and bus stations, hospitals etc. The interesting finding was that residents of less dense area also want to shift to such crowded places because of the convenience related reasons.