What is Housing and Health

Housing that is affordable, stable, in sound condition and in a high opportunity neighborhood optimizing life chances (Hernandez and Swope, 2019). These four pillars of housing- costs, conditions, consistency and context- are thus the basis for health and social equity (Swope and Hernández, 2019). As Dr. Hernández described in a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health on Innovations in Health Promotion, ‘housing-based health interventions’ leverage the physical, social and spatial dimensions of multiple unit housing to promote health, address proximal risks and reach populations of interest (2019).

Hernández has developed a line of research evaluating the impact of place-based interventions on the health and well-being of the poor and underserved. These interventions include: a) physical improvements to the built environment, b) the impact of natural disasters in public housing communities; c) spatially-based tobacco control policies targeting residential and neighborhood environments; and d) the delivery of services within housing and community settings.