Heart of the neighbourhood

What do you think of when you hear the word “neighbour”? Perhaps you think of persistently, and unedifyingly, open curtains on a bathroom window facing your breakfast nook? Possibly you remember unasked-for but delicious vegetable soup delivered without ceremony when you had been in bed for a few days with a cold? Maybe you have sensory memories of country and western music being played too loud, and too long, on a Sunday morning? It could be that you think of wonderful New Year’s Eve celebrations in your street? Or maybe you think of that time your neighbour generously agreed to feed your pet “Eastern three-lined skink” while you were on holiday? Well, as new research shows, whatever your relationship with your neighbours and neighbourhood is will be having an impact on your cardiovascular health.

The new research involved more than 5,000 people who were followed for four years. At the start of the study the subjects had no known heart problems and had an average age of 70. To start the study the participants were asked to use a seven-point scale to rate their neighbourhood on these questions: how much they felt part of the neighbourhood, if they felt their neighbours would help them if they got into difficulty, if they trusted people in the neighbourhood, and if they felt that their neighbours were friendly.

When they looked at heart incidence over the four years of the study and matched it to the responses to the survey, it was found that for each one point increase in neighbourhood social cohesion on that seven-point scale there was a 17 per cent reduction in the risk of heart attack. Statistically, for each standard deviation increase in perceived neighbourhood cohesion there was a 22 per cent reduction in risk of heart attack.

These results held true even after factors like age, race, gender, and other health issues were accounted for.

Exactly how feeling supported socially impacts heart health is a matter for speculation. It might be that socially supportive neighbours model healthy heart behaviours for each other. Maybe the reduction in stress hormones that comes from feeling a sense of belonging helps your heart. Whatever the mechanism it certainly seems that old piece of biblical advice might also be a prescription for heart health: love thy neighbour.