Reviews
on Environmental Health
Vol. 19: Noss.
3–4, 2004
Editorial Introduction
Roderick
J. Lawrence. 161
Gender Differences in Relations among
Housing, Socioeconomic Status,
J.R. Dunn, J.D. Walker, J. Graham
and C.B. Weiss. 177
Interventions to Improve Children’s Health
by Improving the Housing
Nita Chaudhuri 197
Housing and Health in Later Life
Frank
Oswald and Hans-Werner Wahl 223
Home Safety in the UK—A Review of the
Dynamics of Human and Housing Factors
Richard
Moore and David Ormandy. 253
Investigations
into the Indoor Environment and Respiratory Health in Boston
P.
Hynes, D. Brugge, N-D. Osgood, J. Snell, J. Vallarino and J. Spengler. 271
Health
Impact of Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Home
Lesley
Rushton. 291
The Housing and Health Transition in
Thailand
S.
Friel, A. McMichael, T. Kjellstrom and T. Prapamontol. 311
Housing, Urban Development and Health in
Latin America: Contrasts,
Francisco
de Assis Comaru and Marcia Faria Westphal 329
Lead Poisoning in South African Children:
the Hazard is at Home
A.
Mathee, Y. von Schirnding, M. Montgomery and H. Rollin. 347
Homelessness—On the Health Agenda in Wales?
J.W.
Pritchard and J.W. Puzey. 363
Residential Environments and Health: A
Review of Methodological and
I.
van Kamp, J. van Loon, M. Droomers and A. de Hollander. 381
ã
2004 Freund Publishing House Ltd.
Tel
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SPECIAL ISSUE: HOUSING,
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
SPECIAL ISSUE: HOUSING, HEALTH AND
WELL-BEING
This special issue addresses the vast and complex subject of housing, health, and well-being. During the last decade, housing and health has returned to the research agenda. In 2001, for example, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe established a Task Force to help raise both political and scientific awareness about housing and health in all countries, especially the New Independent States of central Europe and the former Soviet Union. Simultaneously, housing and health has been included on the agenda of researchers in a number of disciplines and professions, including environ-mental psychology, epidemiology, gerontology, human geography, housing studies, public health, and social welfare. In recent years, innovative research strategies and methods tackling complex subjects and contexts have been presented at conferences and seminars around the world. For example, the European Network for Housing Research has established a working group on housing and health, now called the residential context of health, which has held regular symposia since 1998.
A
WHO International Symposium on Housing and Health was held in Forli, Italy,
from 21st to 23rd November 2002. A second WHO International Symposium was held
in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 29th September to 1st October 2004. A housing and
health symposium organized by the WHO European Office for Europe was held in
Bonn from 6th to 8th June 2001. At that event, WHO staff presented the results
of a household survey of residents living in high-rise prefabricated
residential buildings that were constructed in Schwedt (Germany), Vilnius
(Lithuania), and Bratislava (Slovakia). This study became the basis for the
development of a WHO Large Analysis and Review of European Housing and Health
Status (WHO LARES) database. The final results of this large-scale study were
not published at the time of writing this edition, whereas preliminary findings
were reported.
One
aim of this special issue is to present a set of reviews and empirical case
studies of housing, health, and well-being. Collectively, they are meant to improve
our current understanding. The contri-butions present examples of empirical
research and professional practice in European and North American countries, as
well as in Brazil, South Africa, and Thailand. The authors of the papers in
this special issue live in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, South
Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom (U.K.), and the United States
of America (U.S.A.). In addition to their professional concerns about housing,
health, and well-being, the contributors have other common interests: they
share professional interests in applying their professional knowledge to
improve the health and well-being of target groups (notably, children and
elderly or homeless persons). The complex research in which these authors are
involved concerns the human-made residential environment in relation to issues
about quality of life (for example, the affordability and availability of
adequate housing; or land use and urban planning for an active lifestyle). The
authors not only deal with theoretical and methodological questions debated in university institutions but
also, in addition, commonly collaborate with several end users of
research, including policy decision-makers and practitioners.
The contributions
in this issue confirm that there is still a gap between the accumulated
empirical evidence on physical, economic and functional dimensions of housing
conditions and health status, and the under-researched relations between the
cultural, semiotic and symbolic dimensions of housing and health. This is unfortunate because the broad
field of person-environment studies has provided numerous theoretical insights
about residential environments. Today, there is a need for further integrating and
synthesizing concepts in order to improve our current understanding of
empirical housing and health relations across the whole life-span. The analytic
schemes provided by several contributions in this special issue can serve as a
conceptual foundation for future research. The impacts of housing conditions
cannot and should not be underestimated. They merit more scientific research, more political
commitment and more innovative interventions in the immediate future.
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