Challenges And Opportunities In Creating Healthy Homes

Recognizing the need for more specific information about Americans' healthy housing concerns and awareness, we developed three surveys of homeowners, renters, and contractors with the goal of comparing their perceptions and priorities to the current well-established principles of indoor air and environmental quality. Results of our surveys indicate that nearly one quarter of homeowners had some concern and healthy-home problems or risks; homeowners cited indoor air quality issues as their leading concern, followed by water quality, harmful materials and chemicals, and indoor environmental quality (such as noise or light pollution). As consumer awareness continues to grow, households and other stakeholders need access to more transparent, science-based information regarding chemicals in buildings and other consumer products. There is ample opportunity for private businesses and public sector organizations -- including manufacturers, remodeling contractors, building/property managers and even public health professionals -- to offer greater access to healthy housing information and services.

In the devastation that follows a major disaster, there is a need for multiple sectors to unite and devote new resources to support the rebuilding of infrastructure, the provision of health and social services, the restoration of care delivery systems, and other critical recovery needs. In some cases, billions of dollars from public, private and charitable sources are invested to help communities recover. National rhetoric often characterizes these efforts as a "return to normal." But for many American communities, pre-disaster conditions are far from optimal. Large segments of the U.S. population suffer from preventable health problems, experience inequitable access to services, and rely on overburdened health systems. A return to pre-event conditions in such cases may be short-sighted given the high costs - both economic and social - of poor health. Instead, it is important to understand that the disaster recovery process offers a series of unique and valuable opportunities to improve on the status quo. Capitalizing on these opportunities can advance the long-term health, resilience, and sustainability of communities - thereby better preparing them for future challenges. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters identifies and recommends recovery practices and novel programs most likely to impact overall community public health and contribute to resiliency for future incidents. This book makes the case that disaster recovery should be guided by a healthy community vision, where health considerations are integrated into all aspects of recovery planning before and after a disaster, and funding streams are leveraged in a coordinated manner and applied to health improvement priorities in order to meet human recovery needs and create healthy built and natural environments. The conceptual framework presented in Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters lays the groundwork to achieve this goal and provides operational guidance for multiple sectors involved in community planning and disaster recovery. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters calls for actions at multiple levels to facilitate recovery strategies that optimize community health. With a shared healthy community vision, strategic planning that prioritizes health, and coordinated implementation, disaster recovery can result in a communities that are healthier, more livable places for current and future generations to grow and thrive - communities that are better prepared for future adversities.

Improved housing conditions can save lives, prevent disease, increase quality of life, reduce poverty, and help mitigate climate change. Housing is becoming increasingly important to health in light of urban growth, ageing populations and climate change. The WHO Housing and health guidelines bring together the most recent evidence to provide practical recommendations to reduce the health burden due to unsafe and substandard housing. Based on newly commissioned systematic reviews, the guidelines provide recommendations relevant to inadequate living space (crowding), low and high indoor temperatures, injury hazards in the home, and accessibility of housing for people with functional impairments. In addition, the guidelines identify and summarize existing WHO guidelines and recommendations related to housing, with respect to water quality, air quality, neighbourhood noise, asbestos, lead, tobacco smoke and radon. The guidelines take a comprehensive, intersectoral perspective on the issue of housing and health and highlight co-benefits of interventions addressing several risk factors at the same time. The WHO Housing and health guidelines aim at informing housing policies and regulations at the national, regional and local level and are further relevant in the daily activities of implementing actors who are directly involved in the construction, maintenance and demolition of housing in ways that influence human health and safety. The guidelines therefore emphasize the importance of collaboration between the health and other sectors and joint efforts across all government levels to promote healthy housing. The guidelines' implementation at country-level will in particular contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals on health (SDG 3) and sustainable cities (SDG 11). WHO will support Member States in adapting the guidelines to national contexts and priorities to ensure safe and healthy housing for all.

Buildings can make us sick or keep us well. Diseases and toxins course through indoor spaces, making us ill. Meanwhile, better air quality and light levels improve productivity. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has us focused more than ever on indoor air quality, Healthy Buildings shows how much we have to gain from human-centered design.

It is widely acknowledged that there is an urgent need to transform our housing stock to a better energy performance level. However, improving energy performance should not result in a negative impact on the health, wellbeing and the comfort of building occupants. There are many energy-neutral features that can be incorporated at small or zero cost which have a positive effect on wellbeing. This book aims to outline and discuss these aspects of building design. The issue of health and wellbeing has already entered into design advice for the workplace, where productivity and absenteeism are often used as indicators. This book concentrates on residential buildings, notably mass housing and affordable strategies, for which new, more socially and health-oriented indicators are being developed. Provides practical design guidance based on scientific evidence Explores both physical and psychological wellbeing Focuses on the home and immediate domestic environment Structured in an accessible way for architects and designers.

This a book for everyone who cares about their home environment. Now, for the first time, healthy housing principles, solutions, and case studies are brought together into this one practical and accessible guide to creating healthy indoor environments. Use the checklists and worksheets to identify the problems specific to your home and your health concerns, and design a solution. Complete with numerous case studies, construction details, system drawings, and the best healthy building solutions available, this book can be used for every kind of dwelling, from the largest house to the smallest apartment. It is suitable for both renovations and new Rome construction. Includes 32 pages of sources which will be updated on the web at regular intervals.

Communities across the country are integrating smart growth, environmental justice, and equitable development approaches to design and build healthy, sustainable, and inclusive neighborhoods. Overburdened communities are using smart growth strategies to address longstanding environmental and health challenges and create new opportunities where they live. Regional and local planners are engaging low-income, minority, and tribal residents in decision-making and producing more enduring development that is better for people and the environment. Community groups, government agencies, and private and nonprofit partners are cleaning up and investing in existing neighborhoods, providing affordable housing and transportation options, and improving access to critical services and amenities. This informational publication aims to build on past successes and offer other low-income, minority, tribal, and overburdened communities approaches to shape development that responds to their needs and reflects their values. It identifies strategies that bring together smart growth, environmental justice, and equitable development principles and that community-based organizations, local and regional decision-makers, developers, and others can use to build healthy, sustainable, and inclusive communities. These are places that provide clean air, water, and land; affordable and healthy homes; safe, reliable, and economical transportation options; and convenient access to jobs, schools, parks, shopping, and other daily necessities.

Rapid urbanization represents major threats and challenges to personal and public health. The World Health Organisation identifies the ‘urban health threat’ as three-fold: infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases; and violence and injury from, amongst other things, road traffic. Within this tripartite structure of health issues in the built environment, there are multiple individual issues affecting both the developed and the developing worlds and the global north and south. Reflecting on a broad set of interrelated concerns about health and the design of the places we inhabit, this book seeks to better understand the interconnectedness and potential solutions to the problems associated with health and the built environment. Divided into three key themes: home, city, and society, each section presents a number of research chapters that explore global processes, transformative praxis and emergent trends in architecture, urban design and healthy city research. Drawing together practicing architects, academics, scholars, public health professional and activists from around the world to provide perspectives on design for health, this book includes emerging research on: healthy homes, walkable cities, design for ageing, dementia and the built environment, health equality and urban poverty, community health services, neighbourhood support and wellbeing, urban sanitation and communicable disease, the role of transport infrastructures and government policy, and the cost implications of ‘unhealthy’ cities etc. To that end, this book examines alternative and radical ways of practicing architecture and the re-imagining of the profession of architecture through a lens of human health.

Communities across the country are integrating smart growth, environmental justice, and equitable development approaches to design and build healthy, sustainable, and inclusive neighborhoods. Overburdened communities are using smart growth strategies to address longstanding environmental and health challenges and create new opportunities where they live. Regional and local planners are engaging low-income, minority, and tribal residents in decision-making and producing more enduring development that is better for people and the environment. Community groups, government agencies, and private and nonprofit partners are cleaning up and investing in existing neighborhoods, providing affordable housing and transportation options, and improving access to critical services and amenities. This informational publication aims to build on past successes and offer other low-income, minority, tribal, and overburdened communities approaches to shape development that responds to their needs and reflects their values. It identifies strategies that bring together smart growth, environmental justice, and equitable development principles and that community-based organizations, local and regional decision-makers, developers, and others can use to build healthy, sustainable, and inclusive communities. These are places that provide clean air, water, and land; affordable and healthy homes; safe, reliable, and economical transportation options; and convenient access to jobs, schools, parks, shopping, and other daily necessities.

The definitive guide to the secret sauce of improving public and population health Nontraditional collaborations have produced some of the most sweeping, health-improving results in recent memory. But whether it's public/private, cross-discipline, or interagency, the formula for identifying these partnerships -- not to mention making them work -- remains very much in progress. The Practical Playbook II is the first resource to elucidate what works (and what doesn't) when it comes to collaborating for change in and around health. It brings together voices of experience and authority to answer this topic's most challenging questions and provide guideposts for applying what they've learned to today's thorniest problems. Readers will find answers to common and advanced questions around multisector partnerships, including: · Identifying sectors and actors that can help to collaborate to improve health · Best practices for initial engagement · Specifics related to collaborations with government, business, faith communities, and other types of partners · The role of data in establishing and running a partnership · Scaling up to maximize impact and remain sustainable · The role of financing · Implications for policy Written in practical terms that will resonate with readers from any background and sector, The Practical Playbook II is the resource that today's helping professions need -- and a roadmap for the next generation of health-improving partnerships.