Click on the links below to learn more about each program.
City of Milwaukee Health Department; Wisconsin
(2002)
The City of Milwaukee is collaborating with the National Center
for Healthy Housing, Fight Asthma Milwaukee Allies, Hmong American
Friendship Association, OIC Weatherization Assistance Program, and
the University of Cincinnati to document the level of environmental
allergens in 75 homes of children with moderate to severe asthma.
The target area is comprised of 10 high-risk zip codes in Milwaukee
with pre-1950 housing and overlaps the target areas of the Milwaukee
Health Department Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (CLPPP),
the Community Development Block Grant Neighborhood Strategic Planning
Areas, and the Enterprise Zone. The 75 homes receiving environmental
assessment and housing interventions will be upgraded as a part
of this project.
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City of Philadelphia; Pennsylvania (2002)
The City of Philadelphia Department of Public Health is collaborating
with the National Nursing Centers Consortium and the University
City Science Center to provide hazard assessments in 200 homes and
remediation services in 100 homes in a high-risk area of North Philadelphia,
including the North Central and American Street Empowerment Zones.
HomeSafe outreach workers will perform a home assessment for moisture,
lead contamination, asthma triggers, carbon monoxide, and mold at
the beginning of the project and repeat this assessment nine months
after interventions have been performed.
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City of Phoenix; Arizona (2002)
The City of Phoenix Neighborhood Services Department is collaborating
with the Phoenix Children's Hospital, the Arizona Department of
Health Services, and the City of Phoenix Head Start to assess and
conduct interventions in at least 150 privately owned housing units
in the City of Phoenix. The target population will be concentrated
in the Phoenix Neighborhood Initiative Areas and Enterprise Community.
The project will assess and correct a spectrum of housing-related
hazards in the target area, conduct community and family education
activities, and provide at least three jobs for low-income workers
in the Enterprise Community.
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Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning;
Maryland (2002)
The Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning is collaborating
with Baltimore City Healthy Start, the Baltimore City Health Department,
Clearing House for Healthy Communities, Harlem Park/Lafayette Square
Village Center, the Enterprise Foundation, the Johns Hopkins School
of Nursing, New Song Urban Ministries, the NAACP, the Wald Clinic,
the American Red Cross, Casey Family Services and Success by 6 to
provide assessment, education, and interventions in 200 homes occupied
by pregnant women and young children. The goal of the project is
to address housing-related health and safety hazards prior to the
birth of a new child in the communities of Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem
Park and Historic East Baltimore South.
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Healthy Homes Network; Missouri (2002)
The Healthy Homes Network, in collaboration with Children's Mercy
Hospital, Baker Environmental Consulting, Metropolitan Energy Center,
Service Master, Kansas City Health Department, and Air Care Technologies,
is providing extensive in-home education and low-cost remediation
to 200 families with critically ill children in the Bi-State Kansas
City Enhanced Enterprise Community in Kansas City, Missouri and
Kansas City, Kansas. Residences will undergo healthy homes interventions
for environmental hazards including lead, allergens, chemical, and
physical hazards. The project will demonstrate low-cost, replicable
remediation strategies and facilitate a Resource Center to provide
supplies and training to the families.
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Montana State University; Montana (2002)
The Montana State University Extension Service is collaborating
with the Tribal Extension Service, Indian Health Services, and the
Indian/Tribal Housing Authority Program to build Reservation capacity
for identification and control of asthma triggers. The project will
provide culturally specific resources to create a strong and sustainable
asthma education program for Native American children on seven Montana
Reservations.
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Mount Sinai School of Medicine; New
York (2002)
Mount Sinai School of Medicine is collaborating with the East Harlem
Asthma Working Group; MicroEcologies, Inc.; Office of Chris Benedict,
Inc.; and STRIVE/East Harlem Employment Service, Inc. to provide
150 at-risk families with education in asthma management and in-home
interventions to minimize the incidences of asthmatic episodes of
children. The target population is an ethnically diverse population
of East Harlem families who live in low-income rental properties
where poor housing conditions exacerbate the severity of childhood
asthma.
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University of Massachusetts Lowell; Massachusetts
(2002)
The University of Massachusetts Lowell's Center for Family, Work,
and Community is partnering with the City of Lowell Health Department
and Division of Planning and Development to improve training, cultural
cross-training and cross-referrals, and educational outreach among
community- and faith-based organizations that visit homes in Lowell.
The project will develop culturally appropriate home assessments
and educational tools for a target population that has a minority
population of 34-percent, and in which 37-percent are living below
the median family income for Lowell.
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Urban Homesteading (UHAB) Inc.; New York
(2002)
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) is relying on expertise
from architects and contractors to develop specifications that create
healthy homes and promote the use of cost-effective green building
materials. This cooperatively developed "Healthy Homes Toolbox"
will include a nontoxic pest control guide, new architectural specifications,
scopes of work, and associated orientation sessions for architects
and contractors. The UHAB "Healthy Homes Toolbox" will
standardize and simplify the development process leading to a healthy
home and allow the integration of healthy homes issues in work specifications
and construction practices to prevent mold, toxins, allergens, pests,
and asthma triggers from being reintroduced into homes in the Tenant
Interim Lease Program in the Hunts Point-Mott Haven community
in the Bronx, NY.
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Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; Alaska
(2001)
The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) leads a coalition
of organizations that address the threats to children's health through
the identification of hazards, the remediation of dangerous situations,
and a statewide education effort on indoor air quality hazards that
affect low-income children. The Cold Climate Housing Research Center
(CCHRC) is also a lead organization in the coalition.
The housing-based problems faced by Alaskans are not unlike those
of low-income people in the contiguous United States. However, the
length and severity of winters in Alaska, coupled with only of few
hours of daylight in the cold months, causes people to spend upwards
of 95-percent of their time indoors, which is greater than people
in more moderate climates. This is major concern to the low-income
residents, because they're often in overcrowded conditions and substandard
housing.
The Healthy Homes in Alaska project is conducted in three communities
in the state, each representing a unique type of community: Fairbanks
is Alaska's second largest city located in the Interior approximately
120 miles south of the Arctic Circle; Noorvik a larger bush community
of 632 residents near the Bering Sea coastline; and Unalaska, a
town of 4,238 which is located near the center of the Aleutian Islands.
These three communities were selected because they represent opportunities
to correct some of the most extreme hazards to children's health,
have voiced an urgent community need and strong local commitment
to solving their problems, and are generally representative of conditions
and housing stock throughout the state. The initiative will focus
on homes of low-income families with children (to include a sample
of mobile homes), provide indoor air quality assessment, health
screenings of affected children and housing remediation to selected
homes.
The goal of this grant is to develop and implement cost-effective
approaches to identify and control housing based hazards to low-income
children throughout Alaska, and to build local capacity to sustain
the program after the grant term. The strategy brings a comprehensive
and coordinated approach that leverages technical experience, previously
completed research, and other efforts to further the understanding
and implementation.
This project is structured into four primary phases. The first
phase assesses indoor air quality within the homes of low-income
children with respiratory health issues (e.g. asthma). The second
phase of the project addresses prevention and elimination of the
causes of house-based hazards. Phase 3 (post-mitigation) consists
of health and home post-mitigation testing and monitoring to verify
clearance of home-based hazards, and to assess the correlation between
health and home environment. Curricula development for education
and training also begins in this phase. The final segment of the
project includes a comprehensive training and education program
that targets resident education, and public awareness. Data analysis
and published reports will conclude this project.
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Alameda County; California (2001)
This project aims to demonstrate that a positive impact on childhood
respiratory health can be achieved by combining a housing/environmental
approach with a concurrent medical model. The reduction in severity
of attacks and frequency of emergency room visits will gauge the
efficacy of the interventions for children ages 1-5 for respiratory
distress. Partners include the Children's Hospital ambulatory clinic
(CHO), the Regional Asthma Management and Prevention Initiative
(RAMP), and the Alameda County Public Health Department.
The first component of the project will be for the Alameda County
Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (ACLPPP) to establish a system
of coordination among the identified partners to reduce the fragmentation
of current services for asthma treatment. The second component will
be the implementation of housing-based interventions and education
addressing asthma triggers and safety issues in the home environment.
The third and essential component of this project is the evaluation
of the housing and education interventions and their impact on children's
respiratory health. Deliverables include:
- Development and sustainability of the Collaborative Partnership
- Multi-hazard housing interventions and an Environmental Maintenance
Plan for 40 homes
- Maintenance/Safety Kits and in-home educational intervention
with 100 homes
- Development of an in-home environmental assessment tool
- Development of a Healthy Homes curriculum and training for 100
Public Health Nurses, home visitors, and collaborative partners
- Development of a training curriculum for Healthy Homes interventions
and safety for contractors and low-income workers
The project will perform low-cost environmental and educational
interventions in 30 homes in selected zip codes of Oakland. Recruitment
for participation will be limited to homes with children who are
1 to 5 years old and diagnosed with respiratory distress. It is
estimated that this project will impact the lives of over 400 children,
including siblings, by providing the family homes with housing-based
interventions. In addition, this project will standardize local
strategies to address the incidence of asthma in Alameda County.
The success of the overall project will provide a cost-effective,
comprehensive, system-wide model to replicate in other urban regions
and decrease medical costs and improve the quality of life for children
not just in Alameda County but nationwide.
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City of Stamford; Connecticut (2001)
The Stamford Health & Social Services Department has made pediatric
asthma its number one health service priority. Stamford's Healthy
Homes Demonstration program utilizes the best of GIS technology
to identify at-risk children, builds upon departmental expertise
in residential health and safety programs, establishes critical
community partnerships to leverage resources, and creates a new
incentive program for owners of deteriorating urban properties to
abate known environmental health risks.
Stamford's asthma cases are clustered in areas of high density,
older stock multi-family housing. These areas consisting of six
inner-city census tracts along the Interstate-95 corridor will be
the target areas for Stamford's Healthy Homes Demonstration program.
8,802 children live within these areas. The majority of the children
residing in these tracts are considered at-risk of lead poisoning
and other environmental hazards, due to the age and deterioration
of the housing stock. These neighborhoods account for a disproportionate
share of all asthma cases in school-aged children in Stamford. The
target area contains census block groups with asthma prevalence
rates ranging as high as 24-percent, or nearly 200-percent greater
than the overall city prevalence.
Asthmatic individuals living in multifamily housing units frequently
do not have control over several aspects of their indoor environments
that would be desirable to modify, such as carpeting, excessive
moisture, and comprehensive pest management. Therefore, environmental
intervention programs must specifically address the real world living
conditions of poor and inner-city populations. The families of asthmatic
children that live within the target area will be contacted by a
Stamford Health Department community health nurse. Those children
that live in multifamily housing in which multiple housing code
violations have been reported will receive the highest priority.
It is anticipated that 300 asthmatic children will be enrolled during
the 3-year grant period. Each family will be offered a comprehensive
asthma intervention that will include:
- Standardized baseline pediatric asthma assessment.
- One-on-one community nurse education about the environmental
triggers of asthma and indoor air quality enhancement.
- Tools to reduce the child's exposure to asthma triggers and
other environmental health and safety hazards.
- Tools to aid in the self-management and monitoring of asthma
- A home/apartment unit inspection by a community health nurse
with an eye towards educating the tenant about environmental concerns
in the home that are within the tenant's general control
- A thorough home/unit and building inspection by a Stamford Health
Department housing code inspector focusing on structural or code
related issues that may not be within the immediate control of
the tenant.
- Medical case management services including a referral to a pediatric
pulmonary specialist for a comprehensive clinical evaluation and
management plan.
- An opportunity for a scholarship to an asthma summer camp.
- An opportunity to participate in the Open Airways Program.
- A follow-up assessment to determine the effectiveness of the
intervention.
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Medical and Health Research Association
of NYC, Inc.; New York (2001)
The purpose of the Bedford Stuyvesant Healthy Homes Initiative
is to develop, implement and evaluate a low-cost approach to assessing
and remediating four types of childhood health and safety hazards
found in the home: lead-based paint, allergen, mold, and injury
hazards. The project involves:
- selecting and enrolling eligible dwelling units
- conducting an initial home assessment to detect the presence
of environmental hazards
- developing a hand-held computer application to facilitate data
collection and management
- providing training to participating owners and tenants on hazard
identification associated health effects and simple, low-cost
remediation/maintenance strategies
- working with participants to create and implement practical
strategies for addressing identified hazards and providing basic
repair and maintenance supplies
- conducting a post-remediation environmental assessment
- launching a community-wide educational campaign to reach additional
owners, tenants, and families in the target community
An extensive evaluation will be conducted to assess four things:
the extent of participation; the efficacy of visual assessment,
as compared to environmental sampling, in identifying hazards; training
effectiveness; and remediation effectiveness.
Partners include the New York City Department of Health (DOH),
New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development
(BPD), Hunter College, Neighborhood Housing Services of Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Inc. (NHS), and the Medical and Health Research Association of New
York City, Inc.
The intervention targets Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Brooklyn community
characterized by considerable poverty, a deteriorating housing stock,
and high rates of childhood illness and injury associated with home
environmental hazards. The project also targets all those reached
by the community-wide educational campaign. In particular, these
outreach and education efforts will strengthen the capacity of participating
property owners to address housing-based hazards, thereby encouraging
these owners to undertake hazard reduction activities in units not
specifically targeted by the intervention. The project is also providing
economic opportunities in Bedford-Stuyvesant; many of the project
staff are Bedford-Stuyvesant residents and contracts have been developed
with community-based partners.
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Seattle/King County; Washington (2001)
The primary goal of the Seattle Healthy Homes Initiative is to
decrease children's exposure to multiple household hazards causing
illness or injury through remediation of structural conditions and
empowerment of residents to take additional, sustainable actions
to reduce exposures. The Seattle Healthy Homes Initiative is addressing
poor indoor air quality (excessive moisture, mold, dust mites, pests,
tobacco smoke, pet dander, CO, NO,), lead, toxic substances, and
injury hazards. Secondary research goals are to accumulate descriptive
data on levels of these hazards; examine the association between
hazards and health outcomes; and examine, develop, and assess low-cost
methods for assessment of indoor environmental quality.
The Seattle Healthy Homes Initiative is a cooperative venture involving
a multitude of organizations from local, state, and federal government;
the private sector; and community-based organizations. This initiative
targets low-income households in the Seattle metropolitan area that
include a child, aged 2-17, with asthma. Staff estimates that approximately
70-percent of participants will be of minority race/ethnicity (African,
African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino). Housing units
will be a mix of publicly-owned SHA units, privately-owned Section
8 units, and privately-owned with no rent subsidy. The project will
benefit the area and result in a sustainable program by:
- Creating a significant number of healthy homes for low-income
families,
- Increasing local knowledge and capacity for assessment and remediation
of hazardous housing conditions through dissemination of assessment
methods, remediation protocols and client remediation,construction
training, and empowerment approaches
- Leveraging existing resources such as weatherization programs
- Integrating currently fragmented efforts to address indoor environmental
quality and safety
- Enhancing linkages among participating organizations to promote
awareness of methods and resources for healthier housing
The project will also determine effective ways of assessing the
indoor environment and approaches for improving it by:
- Identifying households of children with asthma and screening
them for indoor environmental problems
- Conducting baseline assessments of home environmental conditions,
client knowledge and practices related exposures to indoor health
hazards, and health conditions potentially related to indoor environmental
quality with an emphasis on asthma-related health status.
- Correcting structural conditions identified during the baseline
assessment.
- Providing training and economic opportunities for members of
the target population in home remediation, home cleaning, and
outreach/education.
- Providing education, supplies, and support to empower participants
to keep their homes healthy and adopt behaviors leading to a healthier
home environment.
- Evaluating the effectiveness of the program with a randomized,
controlled trial.
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University of Maryland at Baltimore; Maryland
(2001)
The University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Nursing, in collaboration
with Baltimore's Park Heights chapter of the Association of Community
Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) and expert consultants, is developing
a Healthy Homes Demonstration and Education Project in Baltimore's
Park Heights neighborhood. The project will develop community capacity
to assess the environmental risk factors associated with the housing
stock in the community, implement strategies to reduce the environmental
health risks in a minimum of 20 housing units, educate neighborhood
residents, and evaluate the efficacy of the interventions.
Objectives of the Park Heights Healthy Homes Project include the
following:
- Develop and implement a cost-effective protocol to screen homes
for environmental risks that are known to exist in older inner-city
homes and to assess residents' health status, beliefs, and behaviors
related to these environmental hazards;
- Build community-based outreach capacity to assess, remediate,
and evaluate the reduction of environmental risks in homes;
- Develop, implement, and evaluate cost-effective protocols for
creating "Healthy Homes" by remediating environmental risks to
human health and educating residents about ways in which they
can reduce their exposure to these risks;
- Develop, implement, and evaluate an education outreach program
to sustain the maintenance of Healthy Homes in Park Heights;
- Design a model for reproducibility of this Healthy Homes program
in other inner-city neighborhoods throughout the U.S.
- Evaluate the impact of the program in promoting health among
residents.
Targeted housing units will be those in which a child under the
age of 18 (with asthma) spends at least 10 hours a week. Park Heights
is a low-income, predominantly African American residential community
in Northwest Baltimore City. Childhood lead poisoning and childhood
asthma rates are major health issues in this community.
This Healthy Homes project will develop local capacity through
partnerships with community residents, faith communities, the elementary
schools serving the neighborhood, service organizations in the community,
and local health care providers. Community residents will be the
prime personnel in all educational and housing related activities.
A team of community residents will be hired and trained by housing
and environmental consultants to perform assessment and remediation
of environmental risks in the homes. Sustainability of the project
will be assured through creating a core of community residents who
are trained in healthy homes and by permanently modifying health
behavior. Further, ACORN is active in over 30 cities throughout
the United States; therefore, partnering with Park Heights ACORN
provides the groundwork for replicating this Healthy Homes initiative
in other urban neighborhoods throughout the United States. Through
partnership with the American Nurses Association, 200,000 nurses
nationwide will receive continuing education modules regarding assessment
and remediation of health-related environmental risks in housing.
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Denver Healthy Homes Initiative; Colorado
(2000)
The Northeast Denver Housing Center, a community-based housing
organization, has undertaken a demonstration program that allows
128 units to undergo Healthy Homes inspections in Northeast Denver.
The program intends to raise awareness and to increase the capacity
of the business community, non-profit housing developers, city agencies,
and the health community to create healthy housing for low-income
children. The goal is to create a sustainable program, integrated
into several existing programs, that will increase opportunities
for fair housing and address documented environmental justice issues
in the targeted neighborhoods.
Northeast Denver was selected as the target area because of its
high incidence of poverty and aging housing stock. Nearly one-third
of families lives below the poverty level and almost half the homes
were built before 1940. The area has over five times the incidence
of children with elevated blood lead levels (16.2 percent) than
Denver County as a whole. In addition, one-third to one-half of
Denver homes has radon levels above the EPA recommended action level.
Under the program, an estimated 128 units will undergo Healthy
Homes interventions. Eighty-eight units will undergo major Healthy
Homes inspections and 40 units will undergo minor Healthy Homes
inspections. Program interventions focus on reductions in lead dust,
radon levels, carbon monoxide, allergens (cat, dog, dust mite, and
cockroach), endotoxins, water sources resulting in mold, and pests.
The aim of these interventions is to produce measurable reductions
in health and safety problems in the home.
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Erie County Health Department Healthy Homes
Initiative; New York (2000)
The Erie County Health Department Healthy Homes Initiative will
build upon existing health, housing, and community resources in
an effort to prevent low-income children from exposure to home-based
environmental health and safety hazards. The program will direct
its low-cost intervention toward the following health and safety
risks:
- Unintentional injury due to fire or other in-home accident;
- Respiratory problems;
- Lead poisoning;
- Carbon monoxide poisoning; and
- Radon exposure.
The target area consists of the poorest sections in the city of
Buffalo. Within the target area, 45 percent of households are at
or below the poverty level, and 95 percent of the housing stock
was built before 1950. Residents in the target area account for
one-third of the city's hospitalizations due to asthma. The target
area has a fire death rate of 3.5 per 100,000, compared to 2.3 per
100,000 for the city as a whole.
Over the three-year grant cycle, the Department will assess 600
vacant dwelling units prior to occupancy by a low-income family
with children. The Department will also provide low cost interventions
to control for key environmental hazards, develop a comprehensive
education curriculum, provide in-home education for 500 families,
develop a referral network, and register units suitable for occupancy
by low-income families.
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Opportunity Council Healthy Homes
Program; Washington (2000)
The goal of the Opportunity Council's Healthy Homes Program is
to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of preventive measures in
correcting housing-based health hazards. These measures will be
tested by implementing them, in conjunction with weatherization
methods, in owner-occupied homes in four northwestern Washington
counties: Island, San Juan, Skagit, and Whatcom.
Heavy rainfall in the northwest corner of Washington state is extremely
hard on the region's housing stock because moisture accelerates
rot and decay. Further, over half the owner-occupied homes in the
target area that are over 50 years old are occupied by low-income
families. Forty percent of the county's children live in poverty.
The demonstration targets children from birth to age four from
very low-income households who are being cared for in family home
care programs. These households include Native American children,
who have an exceptionally high prevalence of asthma, and recently
settled immigrants from Ukraine. As such, the program will conduct
demonstration interventions in 20 homes, ten of which are owner-occupied
homes of very low-income family home care providers and ten of which
are owner-occupied homes of the children under their care who are
diagnosed with asthma. The goal is to correct hazards and environmental
risks inside homes that threaten the health and safety of the occupants,
particularly young children. Meanwhile, the outreach/public education
portion of the program targets all children, aged birth to 18, who
live in the four counties (80,000 in total).
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Bedford-Stuyvesant Healthy Homes Initiative;
New York (1999)
The New York City Department of Health partnered with the New York
City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Hunter
College, other local colleges, and community development organizations
to demonstrate the effectiveness of low-cost remediation efforts
in addressing childhood safety and health hazards in the home environment.
The program targets Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Brooklyn community characterized
by considerable poverty, a deteriorating housing stock, and frequent
environmental hazards in homes. These conditions resulted in high
rates of childhood illness and injury associated with home hazards.
In 1997, 733 children were hospitalized for asthma and another 125
for home injuries. The community also had the third highest lead
poisoning rate among the city's 30 health center districts.
After conducting a home assessment in previously identified at-risk
properties, program staff will implement a targeted six-step intervention
strategy in 70 homes to make them “healthier.” This strategy will:
- Provide training to both tenants and property owners on hazard
identification, related health effects, and simple, low-cost remediation
and maintenance strategies;
- Create a practical work plan for addressing identified hazards
with tenants and owners;
- Provide vouchers to participants, redeemable at a local hardware
store, to obtain needed home improvement supplies.
- Offer in-home resident assistance to remediate hazards, including
the services of a repair crew.
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Boston Healthy Homes Partnership; Massachusetts
(1999)
The Boston Public Health Commission is working with housing, public
health, and medical experts to develop and implement a coordinated,
protocol-driven home assessment and remediation program.
Targeted neighborhoods include Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mattapan,
North Dorchester, and South Dorchester. These neighborhoods have
higher rates of asthma hospitalizations, blood lead poisonings,
and injury hospitalizations than the rest of the city. In the target
areas, 33.9 percent of children live below the poverty level.
The program's ultimate goal is to reduce asthma exacerbation, lead
poisoning, and home injuries to children. To achieve this goal,
the program will use a community education campaign, home assessment
and remediation initiative, and the creation of a standard or enhanced
intervention model that uses the results of medical and home assessments
to prioritize the structural changes made to a home.
While studying the effects of home environmental interventions,
the Boston Healthy Homes Partnership will also build lasting capacity
in the community by utilizing a local skill-building organization
that trains inner-city youth to perform household repair work, to
develop their own business, and to provide the service at below
market rates.
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City of Long Beach Healthy Homes Initiative;
California (1999)
Old housing combined with a lack of resources to address environmental
hazards can have adverse effects on resident health, particularly
children. In Long Beach, CA, one area on the West Side of the city,
Census Tract 5758, is greatly affected by poverty and the environmental
effects of an aging housing stock. In 1997 and 1998, there were
2,872 emergency room visits for asthma, one-third of which were
for children ages 12 or younger. A 1998 study further revealed that
21 percent of children tested for lead poisoning in this area had
elevated blood lead levels of 10 mg/dL or higher.
The Long Beach Healthy Homes Initiative will provide interventions
for 125 homes in the target area. A Healthy Homes specialist and
a public health nurse will first visit each location to provide
education, skills training, assess family health, and make referrals
as needed. Next, a housing inspector will perform a preliminary
housing inspection and collect samples for hazard testing. With
the test results in-hand, the Healthy Homes specialist will design
a specific and targeted intervention for the unit. At the conclusion
of the intervention, the specialist will perform a clearance test.
These interventions aim to effectively reduce environmental hazards
in the homes of residents in this impoverished area.
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Providence Healthy Housing Partnership;
Rhode Island (1999)
The City of Providence's Department of Planning and Development
plans to amend its round six HUD Lead Hazard Control Grant to assess
140 housing units for hazards that cause respiratory disease, fires,
and other unintentional injuries. Seventy of these units will be
addressed using a standard approach, followed by site-specific treatment.
These units are already scheduled for lead hazard control treatments,
making the amendment a cost-effective way of intervening to address
other home-related health hazards.
The target area is in the Providence Enterprise Community Zone
where over half of the city's housing was built before 1940. In
this area, 25 percent of the children have blood lead levels above
10 mg/dl and 4.2 per 1000 children were hospitalized for asthma
in 1997. In addition, 83 percent of the 332 fires requiring a fire
department response in 1998 were within this target area.
The research team plans a two-cohort study designed to test the
effectiveness of comprehensive Healthy Homes treatments. Of the
140 units scheduled for lead hazard control treatments, 70 will
receive comprehensive Healthy Homes treatments as well. The other
70 will serve as the control group and receive lead hazard control
treatments only. Providence will use the study's findings to update
its housing code and rehabilitation standards.
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