Assessing the Health Impacts of Public Housing for Low Income Elderly and Disabled Residents – An HIA for a Proposed Federal Designated Housing Rule

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is developing regulations to clarify and streamline procedures for a rule that allows public housing authorities to designate housing for elderly and disabled residents. This rule has been used to designate tens of thousands of public housing units across the nation. For low-income elderly and disabled residents, public housing can be a vital source of affordable and stable housing, and  a connection to needed supportive services and surrounding communities. Working with the National Prevention Council and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HUD staff identified this rulemaking as an opportunity to pilot the use of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) as a way to systematically identify important health implications of federal actions. We summarize the results of a systematic literature review, quantitative analysis of housing and health data, and interviews and focus groups conducted as part of this HIA to assess how a rule change could impact health behaviors and outcomes of elderly and disabled residents. We also explored the social environment of public housing and characteristics of surrounding neighborhoods critical to the health of residents. This session will present the process, quantitative methods, assessment findings, and stakeholder engagement approaches used in the HIA as well as the recommendations for optimizing the health benefits of this policy change. The goal is to provide lessons learned from a process that involved a unique set of partners, a national scope, and a nuanced federal policy that could significantly impact health of especially vulnerable populations.