Chapter 8 - The US and international healthy homes movement

Abstract

By the end of the 1990s, the US lead paint experience was used to address other housing-related diseases and injuries. Following a Congressionally mandated investigation into infant fatalities related to mold exposure in Cleveland, a US Department of Housing and Urban Development report to Congress launched the US healthy homes initiative in 1999. Scientists traced the cause of the problem to deficient ventilation and inadequate moisture control. Later, the healthy homes concept expanded to ten key areas: injuries, pests, maintenance, cleaning, toxic substances, accessibility, thermal controls, ventilation, moisture control and affordability. New research and demonstration efforts were launched to determine how interventions could yield significant health improvements. In 2009 the US Surgeon General issued a Call to Action on healthy homes, and a systematic review of the evidence demonstrated which housing interventions were beneficial, which ones did not have sufficient evidence, and which ones were harmful. A National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition was founded to coordinate the many community groups, local governments, housing health and environmental professionals and policymakers. The World Health Organization and other countries started healthy housing work many years before the United States. It launched large surveys of housing and health in nine European countries and held major international conferences in 2002 and 2004. WHO later estimated the burden of disease attributed to inadequate housing and in 2018 WHO released its Housing and Health Guidelines, which are being implemented around the world.