Housing and Health

1
Housing and Health

• The role of Environmental Health Practitioners
• Andrew Griffiths
• Chartered Institute of Environmental Health

2
Programme

• Housing and health the factors
• Housing Conditions
• Multiple Occupation
• Area renewal
• Financial assistance
• Plans and strategies
• Decent Homes Standard
• Looking ahead to 2012

3
Housing Health Relationship

• A Home is a complex inter-action between
• location
• design
• construction
• occupants

4
Housing Health Relationship

• Effects on occupants
• physical
• mental
• social
• cultural

5
Housing Health Relationships

• In modern times, people spend 80 of lives
  indoors (school, working, leisure, home)
• Home is the most dangerous place to be for your
  health

6
Impact of Housing on Health

• Xavier Bonnefoy, Regional Adviser for WHO
  European Centre for Environment and Health
• More Europeans are killed in their homes or
  gardens than on the roads. It is mostly falls,
  but if you put together CO poisoning, fires,
  falls drowning, there are more fatalities than in
  road accidents.

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Comparison of Accidents 1999

• Location Killed Injury Injury
  Total
• (Serious)
  (Minor)
• Road 3600 39000 278000
  320000
• Work 620 132300 500000
  632920
• Home 43000 172600 2,667,400
  2,844,300

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Housing Heath the factors

• Neighbourhood deprivation
• Damp
• Cold
• Fuel poverty
• Indoor air pollutants
• Home safety
• Fire

9
Housing Heath the factors

• Overcrowding
• Housing tenure
• Quality of environment
• Social cohesion
• Community safety
• Homelessness

10
Changing scene

• CIEH Commission - Housing Renewal and Public
  Health
• Innovation driven by declining resources
• (necessity is the mother of invention)
• Move away from grants (RRO 2002)
• Partnership working

11
Changing scene

• Equity release
• Faith loans
• Home improvement agencies
• Shift of focus to the occupier
• Placing the onus on the landlord

12
Plans and strategies

• Regulatory Reform Order 2002
• Circulars and guidance from government including
  the following issues
• planned approach to renewal, clearance and
  financial assistance
• multi occupied houses and tenanted properties
• enforcement policies
• vacant houses

13
Plans and strategies

• No more reacting to requests for a service
• A proactive strategy to define priorities
• Based on information on the scale of the problem
• Efficient operations target response times,
  accurate and consistent inspection procedures

14
Decent Homes Standard

• Wind and weather tight
• Warm
• Modern facilities
• No category 1 hazards
• Insulation against external noise
• Adequate common parts
• Reasonable degree of thermal comfort

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Decent Homes Standard

• National target for private sector
• 70 of vulnerable households in the private
  sector to live in decent homes by 2010

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Decent Homes Standard

• Size of the problem
• 5.4 million (32) non decent, comprising
• 0.6 million (4) of stock unfit
• 1.5 million (9) in disrepair
• 0.3 million (2) in need of modernisation
• 4.3 million (25) insufficient thermal comfort

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Decent Homes Standard

• Scale of the problem
• 77 of all non decent stock in in the private
  sector
• 29 of all owner-occupied stock is non decent
• 49 of all private rented stock is non decent
• Total cost to make decent- 41 billion

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Further issues

• Anti-social behaviour
• Market conditions raising standards
• Clearance and obsolescence
• Overcrowding
• Local planning policies
• Fuel poverty
• Green landlord scheme

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Looking ahead to 2012The New Public Health

• Wider determinants of health
• Tackling major killers(cancer and CHD)
• Evidence basedpractice

• Tackling health inequalities
• Partnership and co-ordination of services
• Modernisation with apublic focus

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Scope of Environmental Health Services
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The Niche of Environmental Health

• EHOs unique contribution - prime focus of
  maintaining health rather curing illness
• Use problem-solving skills, with legal powers,
  within local authorities, to deal with ill health
  in the home, workplace and community

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The Niche of Environmental Health

• EHOs actions
• directly influence health determinants
• maintain healthy environments for individuals and
  wider communities,
• protect the environment for future generations

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An Overall Aim The Vision for Environmental
Health 2012

• EHOs, with and other public health professionals,
  will be key partners to protect and improve the
  health and quality of life of individuals and
  communities and reduce health inequalities.

24
An Overall Aim The Vision for Environmental
Health 2012

• EHOs will maintain relationships with the public,
  and apply their expertise in responding to the
  needs of individuals, and the wider population by
  dealing with current and future risks

25
An Overall Aim The Vision for Environmental
Health 2012

• EHOs will play lead roles in local authority
  community health strategies through Local
  Strategic Partnerships, and will actively
  contribute to the public health agenda of NHS
  PCTs. They will also contribute to tackling
  public health issues all levels.

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Peering into the future

• Less funding
• More innovation
• More partnerships
• Decent Homes Standard
• No death or taxes

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• If we dont succeed, we run the risk of failure

Dan Quayle
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