Effects of neighborhood on health, child development, and well being: Findings from HUD's “Moving to Opportunity” study

This presentation will summarize health and other key findings from an important study conducted by HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research in which very poor families were moved out of high poverty public housing developments into lower poverty neighborhoods using housing vouchers. The study randomly assigned 4,603 families into two treatment and one control group. One treatment group could use vouchers to subsidize rental housing anywhere, the other treatment group could use vouchers only in low-poverty neighborhoods. The control group could remain in public housing, but did not receive voucher access at randomization. Both adults and children were followed up with 15 years later (response rate of 88%) to assess the program impacts on health, economic well being, and delinquency, among others.