Housing dampness and health amongst British Bengalis in east London

Abstract

The paper describes a survey that was undertaken to investigate the possible associations between damp public sector housing in London (U.K.) and the health of British Bengali tenants. The problems of establishing epidemiological evidence in this field and the accurate assessment of dampness and health are addressed, and the relative importance of housing and lifestyle factors in the prevalence of damp in the home is considered. The results show that there are significant relationships between reported and measured damp, cold and mould in the home and various aspects of reported health. It is also apparent that it is aspects of housing, in particular the provision of a good heating system rather than lifestyle that determine the degree of dampness in a home.