Communications and Policy Development for Asthma and Healthy Housing

NCHH worked with The Pew Charitable Trusts to develop a technical guidance document and two four-page summaries on conducting health impact assessments on housing-related policies and practices. The four-page summaries complement the technical guidance to enable housing and health decision makers to learn the value of conducting HIAs on housing policy and practice decisions and see the application to their local work.

Systematic Review of Housing HIAs
NCHH created a systematic review of all HIA reports completed in the U.S. to date on housing decisions. This includes, for example, HIAs focused on planning/zoning, affordability, and housing finance.

Tutorial on How Housing Works
This will include an overview of “how housing policies work” and “how housing gets produced,” both in the public and private sectors. The intention of the project was not to inventory all housing policies, program, and financing vehicles but to focus on those that would benefit most from HIA or those that have the greatest implications for health.

The Value Add of HIA in Housing Decision Making
Using the information from the systematic review of housing HIAs and the tutorial on how housing works as a platform, NCHH analyzed the specific issues that HIA addresses and articulated the value conducting an HIA adds, to both to the health of affected communities and those making the decisions.

Guidance on Conducting HIAs in Housing Decisions
NCHH developed guidance for conducting HIAs to inform housing decisions. The guidance included a description of each step of the HIA process, with examples of how the steps have been accomplished in prior HIAs, including:

Policy Briefs: NCHH developed two policy briefs (see “Issue Briefs” below) to educate housing and health practitioners and policy makers about the value of conducting HIAs for housing policies and practices, the applicability to their work, and highlights of examples where conducting HIAs improved housing policies and program results
Compilation of Tools and Resources for Conducting HIAs: NCHH collected existing tools and resources that are helpful for conducting HIAs and included them as an appendix to the technical guidance. NCHH also identified gaps in the existing tools and resources and suggested potential opportunities to address these gaps with the development of new tools or adaptation of existing tools from other fields.