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. 2024 Apr 4;8(3):486-503.
doi: 10.1080/23748834.2024.2328951. eCollection 2024.

Getting to effective housing policy for health: a thematic synthesis of policy development and implementation

Emily Nix  1   2 , Andrew Ibbetson  3 , Ke Zhou  1 , Michael Davies  1 , Paul Wilkinson  3 , Ramona Ludolph  4 , Helen Pineo  1   5
Affiliations

Getting to effective housing policy for health: a thematic synthesis of policy development and implementation

Emily Nix et al. Cities Health. .

Abstract

Impacts of housing on health are well-recognised. Despite this, housing standards have been neglected and there are gaps in healthy housing policies, particularly in low and middle-income countries. Given the recent publication of the WHO Housing and health guidelines, and the need to implement these into policy at all scales, we carried out a focused search and thematic synthesis of available literature on the barriers and enablers to recent housing and health policy. We aimed to generate lessons of what works to support healthy housing policy development and implementation elsewhere. Twenty-three studies representing four countries were eligible for inclusion and covered housing-related risks of air quality, lead, accessible design, and housing conditions. Findings demonstrated that policy development and implementation were facilitated through awareness of housing and health, evidence of existing housing conditions and health impacts, collaborations across sectors and between residents and decision-makers and effective enforcement systems that employed incentives, tools such as certificates for compliance, and housing inspections. Concerns about economic viability and tensions between housing rights and responsibilities limited healthy housing policy for the 'common good'. Despite limitations in the diversity of available evidence, this thematic synthesis provides a starting point for healthy and equitable housing for all.

Keywords: Housing; health; policy processes; review.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The flow of records in the review.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Themes and specific enablers plotted at their relative position along the policy process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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