Leisure home ownership and early death: a longitudinal study in Sweden.

People who perform paid work may benefit from psychological restoration afforded by a leisure home and its natural surroundings. This may hinder the development of some forms of life-threatening illness. Using longitudinal register data for 108,114 employed Swedes, we assessed the prospective association between leisure home ownership and death before age 65. Among men, but not among women, leisure home owners had lower odds of early death, after adjustment for sociodemographic and residential characteristics (OR=0.875, 95% CI=0.702-0.980). The results bear on natural environments as health resources, inform debate on urban densification, and broaden the discussion of residence and health.