- 3.1: Health and Housing
- 3.2: Building, Maintenance and Renovation
- 3.3: Home Hazards
- 3.4: Integrated Pest Management
- 3.5: Training
- 3.5: Research
- 3.6: Program Links
Our mission:
To reduce the impact of asthma across New England, through collaborations of health, housing, education, and environmental organizations with particular focus on the contribution of schools, homes, and communities to the disease and with attention to its disproportionate impact on populations at greatest risk.
Health and Housing
Over the past several decades, an increasingly large body of scientific evidence has established the link between housing conditions and inhabitants' health. Deteriorating structures, building materials that off-gas, moisture and mold, poor maintenance and sanitation can all impact the environment of a home and the health of its inhabitants.
Hazards in the home environment cause or exacerbate a number of illnesses and injuries. For example, dust, chronic dampness, mold, secondhand smoke (SHS) and pests trigger asthma; radon and SHS cause lung cancer; lead-based paint is still a source of lead poisoning in children; carbon monoxide and chemicals in household products can lead to poisonings; and lack of safety railing and smoke alarms can result in preventable injuries.
The underlying causes of these home health hazards often overlap, as do the interventions that correct those causes. Here we provide you with some of the scientific evidence and disease burden statistics that have established the link between housing conditions and inhabitants' health.
General Resources: Links between Housing and Health
Housing Interventions and Health Outcomes: A Review of the Evidence
by the National Center for Healthy Housing and the US CDC, 2009.
Where We Live Matters for Our Health: The Links Between Housing and Health
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Commission to Build a Healthier America, 2008.
Center for Disease Control's Healthy Homes Action Plan (with disease burden)
The Asthma and Housing Connection
A PowerPoint presentation produced by ARC that outlines the impact housing can have on asthma.
On October 12, 2011 ARC and close to 50 co-signers submitted testimony requesting that the Institute of Medicine examine and address the non-clinical best practice components of comprehensive asthma management as part of Community Based
Non-Clinical Prevention Policies and Wellness Strategies.
Over 50 organizations and individuals joined ARC and Health Resources in Action in expressing to New England U.S. Senator4s our extreme concern about the proposed complete elimination of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Prevention Program by the Senate Appropriations Committee in the proposed FY12 spending bill for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.