Can the Concept of Healthy Homes Help Reduce the Existing Residential Hazards in the Context of South Florida?

Introduction Ever since Healthy Homes Initiative (HHI) was introduced to protect children and their families from housing-related health and safety hazards, communities benefited from it. HHI takes a holistic approach to these activities by focusing on housing-related hazards (such as mold, lead, allergens, carbon monoxide, home safety, pesticides, and radon) in a coordinated fashion. Objectives Based on our knowledge of lead exposure in children and community-based interventions to reduce environmental triggers for asthma among children, strategies to combat childhood lead poisoning should be integrated with childhood asthma and injury interventions. South Florida, with its multiethnic groups in a warm climate is implementing the concept of Healthy Homes. South Florida Asthma Consortium has started a home investigation with the concept in mind in 4 counties along with 2 CDC-funded pilot studies. Results Lead dust, triggers of asthma, and injury hazards are some of the residential hazards that are being investigated. The challenge is that the residents move quite often in the urban communities in South Florida. There is a greater need of working with the landlords, an idea that we are exploring using health impact assessment (HIA). Conclusions By addressing these housing-related health hazards together, the integrated intervention will be cost-effective and decrease asthma morbidity. The concept of healthy homes and HIA will greatly effective in addressing the environmental health issues in the home. The conditions that contribute to both the risk of childhood lead poisoning, asthma morbidity, and injury-related conditions can be dealt with at the same time.