Abstract
Building Racial and Health Equity Through Housing: Mississippi Healthy Housing Policy Project
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative partners with Mississippi State Department of Health to lead the state Healthy Housing Policy Project, which began in 2020. The first phase of this project, which included research, engagement, and capacity building activities, was designed to support development of interdisciplinary coalitions in seven Mississippi communities committed to raising awareness about lead poisoning risk and environmental home health hazards. During the first year participants committed to expanding community-based capacity for creating and enforcing lead safety and healthy housing standards by participating in community health impact assessments of housing policies.
A key finding of the preliminary project research was that over 300,000 households in Mississippi are cost burdened by housing expenses and more likely to experience exposure to unhealthy housing conditions. The impact of unhealthy housing creates over $1.1 billion in annual medical costs for the state. Data analysis demonstrates disparities in health and housing conditions are measurable by race, income level, and related factors. The historical housing policy and financing trends driving racial disparities in housing development provided important context for this work.
Each participating community completed: 1) Community assessment and screening activities including surveys, focus groups, and review network maps, to support project planning; 2) Logic models with goals related to capacity building for local parent engagement, education, partnership development, fundraising, or policy; 3) Local engagement with project partners for community outreach activities, political engagement, and review of assessment findings and recommendations; 4) Delivery of technical assistance for policy development, community education, workforce training, and fundraising; 5) Dissemination of healthy housing policy guidance and project findings to support the development of strategies to implement recommendations.
Anticipated long-term outcomes of this project include 1) Increased engagement in public health campaigns from parents, early childcare providers, healthcare providers, and other community partners that will lead to increased lead testing rates for children at risk for lead poisoning; 2) Increased community-based workforce and administrative capacity in targeted communities for lead hazard reduction and healthy homes programs, and more funding from federal and state grant programs; 3) Greater awareness of the financial and regulatory barriers residents face when they need to address environmental health hazards in housing; 4) Identification and adoption of effective strategies to protect renters and homeowners from unhealthy housing conditions and respond to reported cases of lead based paint and other health hazards without displacing residents; 5) Increased enforcement and compliance with healthy housing standards.