Concrete Human
André Clemetsen
The last ghost in our city
I am the last ghost in our city. Not even the church bells can be heard
beneath the thick fog of loneliness the entire housing block carries on its back.
Denmark keeps a patient register, a prescription register and a building register, and the three can be read together person by person. The public health researcher Anne Marie Kirkegaard and colleagues did that for 14,387 people between 2000 and 2018. People in rented flats were treated for depression 1.32 times as often as people who owned a detached house, and people in rented terrace houses 1.23 times as often. Indoor annoyances account for 11% of that gap and loneliness for 8%.
Anne Marie Kirkegaard and others, BMC Public Health, 2025
doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-22473-1