Health improvements from green rehabilitation of low-income housing in Minnesota

Recently, new standards have been developed to bring green and healthy housing principles into housing rehabilitation, but resulting environmental and health improvements have not been adequately characterized. We incorporated ventilation improvements (planned fresh air supply and tight building envelop), low volatile organic compound (VOC) building materials, radon mitigation, integrated pest management, Energy Star bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans, moisture/mold reduction, energy conservation and other measures into the rehabilitation of a low-income housing development in Minnesota. Health questionnaires and visual assessments were conducted shortly after residents moved into renovated units and were repeated 12 to 18 months later. The questionnaire was drawn primarily from validated national survey instruments from CDC and HUD. In adults (n=49) there were large and statistically significant improvements in self-reported general health, chronic bronchitis, hay fever, sinusitis, and asthma (p<0.05). Hypertension in adults also improved, achieving marginal statistical significance (p=0.083). In children (n=29), there were also large improvements in general health, children's respiratory allergies, and children's ear infections. There were also reported improvements in comfort, safety and ease of housecleaning. Some of the children's health and other improvements did not consistently reach statistical significance , most likely due to the small size of the study population or the more indirect assessment provided by the child's caregiver. Levels of radon and VOCs were all low following the green rehabilitation. Use of green healthy homes practices in low-income housing rehabilitation achieves important health gains and reduced exposure to toxicants.