Home Improvements Boost Health: AnalysisMonday, 18 Mar 2013
In a review of existing evidence on the health value of fixes to
housing, researchers say that improving buildings to enhance
"thermal comfort" - with central heating or insulation, for
instance - pays off in both physical and mental well-being.
"I think the main message is that housing improvement can
improve health, especially if it's warmth and energy
improvements targeting people with respiratory illnesses," said
Hilary Thomson, the study's lead author from the Medical
Research Council in Glasgow, UK.
Several studies have tied poor housing conditions to poor
health, but there are some questions about the quality of
evidence for that link, according to Thomson and her colleagues.
They write in the journal The Cochrane Library that doubts arise
because researchers have trouble teasing apart the effects of
poor housing and other factors that may play a role, such as age
and poverty.
The most common housing conditions tied to poor health, they
write, are air quality, heat and humidity conditions, radon,
noise, dust, tobacco smoke, falls and fires.
To see whether improving the physical conditions in homes could
translate into tangible improvement in residents' health, the
researchers pooled information from 39 previously published
studies on the topic.
The past research examined a number of possible housing
improvements, including refurbishing existing homes, relocating
people to new homes and providing bathrooms.
Most of the data from these disparate studies could not be
combined into a single pool for analysis because the research
designs were too different. So instead, Thomson's team
concentrated on the results that stood out across studies.
Overall, they found, programs that improve temperature control
in the homes of people who are in poor health and in the worst
quality housing lead to the greatest benefit, compared to
improvements that are applied to whole areas of housing
regardless of need.
For example, two studies from New Zealand targeted people who
lived in homes with inadequate heating. They added insulation to
better regulate the homes' temperature and found that the number
of children and adults listed in "poor or fair health" fell by
about 50 percent, relative to a comparison group with no housing
changes.
"I would say it's modest improvements, but they were seen
(within) about six months of the improvements. It doesn't take a
while to see these improvements, they happen quite quickly,"
Thomson said.
A UK study found more mixed results when it looked at heating
improvements throughout an entire community, without a focus on
particularly needy homes.
Thomson's group cautions in their report that the results from
the New Zealand studies could have been more robust because they
targeted a specific population while the UK study did not.
Furthermore, they write, improving temperature control
throughout homes may benefit both physical and mental health by
increasing the amount of usable space. Ultimately, that may lead
to better relationships between the people living in the home,
and better work and school attendance.
Rebecca Morley, executive director of the National Center for
Healthy Housing in Columbia, Maryland, told Reuters Health that
she felt the new review was incomplete, because it did not look
at studies on lead, radon and other household hazards like
asbestos.
"We certainly want people to be comfortable and warm in their
homes, but it's not the only concern in the U.S.," said Morley,
who was not involved in the new research.
Thomson said they excluded those hazards from the review because
they are already known to be toxins (so "improving" them would
be expected to benefit health), but she added that it would be
useful to look at them too in another study.
"Although the evidence has increased, it's still good to
evaluate ongoing housing improvements and see more specifically
what type of housing improvement is going to benefit who,"
Thomson said.
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