Elsevier

Health & Place

Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 175-184
Health & Place

Housing and health inequalities: A synthesis of systematic reviews of interventions aimed at different pathways linking housing and health

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2010.09.011Get rights and content
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Abstract

Housing and neighbourhood conditions are widely acknowledged to be important social determinants of health, through three main pathways: (1) internal housing conditions, (2) area characteristics and (3) housing tenure. We conducted a systematic overview of systematic reviews of intervention studies to provide an overview of the evidence on the impact of housing and neighbourhood interventions on health and health inequalities. There is relatively strong evidence for interventions aimed at improving area characteristics and compelling evidence for warmth and energy efficiency interventions targeted at vulnerable individuals. However, the health impacts of area-level internal housing improvement interventions are as yet unclear. We found no reviews of interventions aimed at altering housing tenure. This remains an important area for further research and potentially new evidence syntheses.

Keywords

Housing
Health inequalities
Systematic review
Intervention
Evidence

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