Social Determinants of Health: Better Housing Linked to Healthier, Longer Lives
Home is where the heart is. And, for too many Americans, where the health risks are. Americans spend about 90% of their time indoors—two thirds of that in their own homes.
The sheer amount of time and money invested in housing is why it is a strong social determinant of health, one of the environmental and societal factors that affect how healthy a person is. Housing, both in economic and qualitative terms, is listed as an indicator of health in Healthy People 2020, a call on public health to address social determinants of health. Unhealthy housing is a near guarantee of poor health outcomes—but healthy housing can be a contributing factor in making and keeping a person healthy.
The National Center for Healthy Housing and APHA, in their joint 2014 National Healthy Housing Standard, set a guideline for what constitutes a healthy home: a dwelling that is clean, safe and sanitary; without hazards or pests; and with safety and security measures in place to maintain occupants’ well-being. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development outlines eight things to maintain a healthy home: keep it dry, clean, safe, well-ventilated, pest-free, contaminant-free, well-maintained, and thermally controlled.
And yet, too many homes in the United States do not meet these standards, and too many people cannot afford homes that do. Substandard housing affects many Americans’ health.
— Lindsey Wahowiak
Read the full article, which is the third in a series, in The Nation’s Health at www.thenationshealth.org/sdoh
Castillodominici, courtesy of iStockphoto.
Connecting to Care: Making Health a Priority for Children in Foster System
At least one third of children enter foster care with a chronic health issue, such as asthma, and up to 80% enter in need of services for significant mental health issues, according to “Health Care Issues for Children and Adolescents in Foster Care and Kinship Care,” an October 2015 policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The statement outlines health needs of kids in foster care and calls for actions such as advocating for foster children to get their needs met in a medical home.
The foster care population is sizable. As of September 2014, there were more than 415 000 US children in foster care and 46% were in nonrelative foster family homes, according to a 2016 report of the Child Welfare Information Gateway, a service of the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, and US Department of Health and Human Services.
Driving chronic physical and mental health issues is the fact that children in foster care are more likely to be coming from traumatic home environments where they may have witnessed or experienced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that causes physical and psychological harm.
Yet despite the increased health risks, many children in foster care face obstacles to getting regular health care, in part because of changing caregivers and locations. Such changes can lead to lapses in medical information about a child, such as current immunizations and medications. Another complication is that not all care providers accept Medicaid, despite the fact most children in the foster care system are insured under Medicaid.
Untreated health and mental health conditions in children can lead to long-term consequences such as failure to finish school, underemployment, unemployment, and risky behaviors such as substance use.
— Natalie McGill
Read the full article in The Nation’s Health at http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/46/7/1.2.full
For more public health news from The Nation’s Health, APHA’s official newspaper, visit www.thenationshealth.org.