World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Research and Training on Housing Related Disease and Injury Prevention

The quality of housing has major implications for people’s health. Housing in cities is of particular concern, with the world’s urban population predicted to double by 2050 and, with it, the demand for housing. In both developed and developing countries, improving housing conditions and reducing health risks in the home is thus critically important.

Ensuring everyone lives in healthy and safe dwellings has implications for national, regional and local governments, which set overall standards and determine the legal context for housing construction and renovation.

With these guidelines, WHO provides evidence-based recommendations on conditions and interventions that promote healthy housing, and facilitates leadership in enabling health and safety considerations to underpin housing regulations.

— Excerpted from the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines

NCHH’s Role

The National Center for Healthy Housing includes a Collaborating Center with the World Health Organization (WHO) within its research division.

First designated by WHO in 2010, NCHH and the World Health Organization have worked together on many projects. Most recently, NCHH played a key role in the development and 2018 release of the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines, the first international document of its kind, and is now working to implement its recommendations.

David E. Jacobs, PhD, CIH, NCHH’s chief scientist, served as an editor and author of WHO’s Environmental Burden of Disease Associated with Inadequate Housing, published in 2011. Dr. Jacobs also provided keynote addresses and scientific papers at several international healthy housing conferences, including ones in Great Britain, Lithuania, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.

NCHH has also participated in peer review of WHO proposals and documents.

For more information about NCHH’s work with the World Health Organization, contact the Collaborating Center’s director, Dr. David Jacobs.

Selected Publications

The National Center for Healthy Housing is proud to have contributed to the creation of these publications from the World Health Organization.

• WHO Housing and Health Guidelines. (2018). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
• Braubach, M., Jacobs, D. E., & Ormandy, D. (Eds). (2011). Environmental Burden of Disease Associated with Inadequate Housing: A Method Guide to the Quantification of Health Effects of Selected Housing Risks in the WHO European Region. Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe.

Related

• O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law (June 30, 2020):
  Letter to Congress on WHO Withdrawal from Public Health, Law and International Relations Leaders
• NCHH News (April 28, 2020):
  NCHH and Health Collaborating Centers Urge President and Congress to Restore WHO Funding
• NCHH News (November 28, 2018):
  World Health Organization Releases Seminal Housing and Health Guidelines