Krieger J, Higgins DL. Housing and health: time again for public health action. American Journal of Public Health. 2002;92: 230-236.
The authors discuss how the quality and accessibility of housing is related to health. They consider the relationship of housing to infectious diseases, chronic illnesses, injuries, poor nutrition, and mental disorders. The authors also examine neighborhood effects on health. They note that substandard housing is not equally distributed throughout the population, and that the same populations who have poor housing-including low-income people and people of color-also have poor health. In addition, the authors discuss the historical relationship between public health and housing conditions, including the sanitary reform movement and the development of housing regulations.
The authors recommend several approaches to improving the quality of housing: strengthening housing codes and providing resources for their enforcement; expanding and providing additional resources for Healthy Homes programs initiated by county and city health departments to provide education and resources for people to improve housing quality; increasing collaboration between public health agencies and other government agencies and community groups; and having public health agencies advocate for policies to ensure access to affordable and healthy housing and remediation of unhealthy housing.
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