What is the state of research on housing's impact on health?
Find an answer to that question in a policy brief entitled "Housing And Health: An Overview Of The Literature” published on June 7th in Health Affairs, the leading journal of health policy thought and research.
Written by Lauren Taylor, this interesting brief outlines and evaluates available literature and research including examples of observational and interventional studies dealing with the impact of housing on health. The author reviews literature supporting housing’s impact on health through four pathways: housing stability, quality and safety, affordability, and neighborhood.
In her section on Policy Implications, Ms. Taylor writes about the role that private businesses, lenders, and investors can play. Banks, CDFIs and other commercial entities, she says, “should consider themselves potential anchors for community revitalization (or market opening) projects,” and cites the work of HNEF and Build Healthy Places Network as “especially instructive.”
The research and literature reviewed in this brief is informative and critically important for all who are concerned with making more equitable opportunities for affordable, safe, quality, and stable housing in healthy neighborhoods.
