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Thursday, February 8, 2024 | The Latest Research, Commentary, and News from Health Affairs
Dear John,
Today, we explore the February 2024 theme issue on housing and health ([link removed] ) with a glimpse behind the scenes with lead editor Ellen Bayer.
Thanks to Kaiser Permanente, The Colorado Health Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California Health Care Foundation, and The California Endowment, whose generous support made the theme issue possible.
Tomorrow, be sure to check out a new episode of Health Affairs This Week featuring Bayer and editor Rob Lott as they go behind the pages of the February theme issue.
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Exploring the Many Connections Between Housing and Health
The February 2024 edition of Health Affairs is our first theme issue on the topic of housing and health.
Publishing the issue is the culmination of a year-long process involving nearly all members of the Health Affairs team. As is our custom for theme issues, we began with a planning meeting in March 2023 that brought together housing and health experts from academia, government, nonprofit organizations, as well as people who have lived experience with homelessness.
The meeting was led by our theme issue advisers, Ingrid Gould Ellen of New York University and Mariana Arcaya of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The wide-ranging conversation at the planning meeting covered a broad array of topics, but one point came through loud and clear: Housing is much more than bricks and mortar.
Housing is a hub for accessing resources; housing is a platform for social connection; housing is opportunity.
Housing is so central to both short- and long-term health and well-being that the US Interagency Council on Homelessness has emphasized that “Housing is health.”
Following a day of brainstorming and sharing perspectives, our next step was to issue a request for abstracts. The response was tremendous, with more than 200 abstracts submitted.
After careful review by the editorial team and our outside advisers, we invited a total of 26 papers and a Narrative Matters essay. Following our standard peer review process, we selected 17 papers for publication, including overview articles, research papers, an analysis, and a Narrative Matters. The issue also includes a journalistic piece in our Entry Point section ([link removed] ) .
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From this diverse mix of content, several themes emerged.
First, there is a two-way relationship between housing and health. The quality of the home you live in and the neighborhood where it’s located affect your health. Being unhoused has extremely negative repercussions for health and life expectancy. And on the flip side, poor health can affect housing status; research has suggested that health crises can precipitate homelessness.
Second, there are long-standing systemic factors that affect the interplay between housing and health. For decades, practices such as redlining and use of racially restrictive covenants were used to maintain neighborhood segregation. The adverse effects of these practices have endured for generations, creating persistent inequity.
As theme issue adviser Mariana Arcaya and colleagues describe in their overview paper, neighborhoods in the US are highly segregated by race, ethnicity, and income ([link removed] ) . Compared to Black and Hispanic families, White families, on average, live in higher income neighborhoods, with higher performing schools and lower rates of violent crime. A robust body of evidence has demonstrated an association between neighborhood characteristics and health.
Articles on the impact of structural racism include a research paper on gentrification and a policy inventory on the effects of 100 years of discriminatory housing policy ([link removed] ) on a Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood.
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In their overview paper, Cheyenne Garcia and coauthors explore the relationship between homelessness and health ([link removed] ) , discuss programmatic and policy innovations, and provide recommendations. Multiple dimensions of homelessness are addressed in papers on residents’ experiences following an encampment clearing ([link removed] ) , homelessness and mortality ([link removed] ) , and the impact of the Housing First model ([link removed] ) .
Articles on the effects of energy insecurity ([link removed] ) , use of Housing Choice vouchers ([link removed] ) , and evictions following disenrollment from Medicaid ([link removed] ) provide insights on the health implications of housing quality and stability. Additional papers examine innovative partnerships between health care entities and the housing sector ([link removed] ) and use of machine learning to identify housing-sensitive health conditions ([link removed] ) .
In this month’s Narrative Matters, Lawrence Lincoln shares what his life was like on the streets of Oakland, CA ([link removed] ) and describes his journey out of homelessness during COVID and beyond.
In the February issue you’ll also find illustrations by artists involved with Art from the Streets, an Austin, TX-based nonprofit ([link removed] ) that enables people experiencing homelessness, at risk of homelessness, or in transition to nurture their creativity, make social connections, and generate income from the sale of their work.
I have learned so much from collaborating with my colleagues, our advisers, and the authors to produce the theme issue. I invite you to take the opportunity to explore it and gain new insights on the many connections between housing and health.
--
Ellen Bayer
Senior Editor
Read the Issue
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The centerpiece of the Health Affairs Insider Journal Club meeting in February is, “Housing-Sensitive Health Conditions Can Predict Poor Quality Housing ([link removed] ) .”
In the paper, authors examine the relationship between unsafe housing and ill health, and explain a machine learning tool they developed to improve health-related building inspection targeting.
On February 26, please join author Daniel Neill of New York University for a detailed discussion of the paper’s data, methods, and policy implications. Health Affairs Senior Editor Laura Tollen will host.
Register
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Medicare Part D’s New Prescription Payment Plan May Not Reduce Costs For All ([link removed] )
Stacie B. Dusetzina et al.
FB+TW-BWM-GrantPanting ([link removed] )
Celebrating Black History Month
This Black History Month, we're highlighting influential Black voices and organizations who have made an impact on health equity and policy.
In an October 2023 Narrative Matters, Alexis Grant-Panting reflects on why Black women like her have come to fear their birth experiences ([link removed] ) .
Read The Article
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About Health Affairs
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal ([link removed] ) at the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online.
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