Earlier this summer, we were contacted for a volunteer work opportunity by a medical student attending the University of Washington. She spent time working alongside health officials at TriState Health so we opened the door to a wonderful partnership between Pearl Griffith and L-C Valley Habitat for Humanity. She put in time doing remote work as a Habitat volunteer to create a report about housing and how that impacts health issues.

Read more about Pearl here, and watch our social pages for information from Pearl’s report, including these posts.

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Can Housing Stability Affect Your Health?

Compiled by Pearl Griffiths

University of Washington School of Medicine

Practicing student at TriState Health, Clarkston

Housing stability can have a significant impact on your health. Research has shown that people with upward social mobility in the form of homeownership among other things were healthier throughout life and in adulthood (Barakat et al. 2023). Why are homeowners healthier?

The physical home environment has been shown to influence our health. It is known that substandard housing conditions increase the risk of adverse respiratory outcomes (Jacobs 2011).  A subsequent study showed that adults living in public housing had higher odds of having asthma. They also had higher odds of having an asthma attack in the past year (Kim et al. 2022). Reducing exposure to substandard housing conditions can help you avoid these bad health outcomes and reduce the chances of having asthma attacks.

Homeownership is also associated with improved mental health. Research has shown that homeowners had lower depressive symptom scores and improved prognosis of depression when compared to those who were unstably housed (Buckman et al. 2022). This means homeowner depression was more likely to improve over time when compared to unstably housed people. Another study had similar findings. They concluded that among low-income adults in the US, homeownership was associated with a lower burden of depression (Ettman et al. 2021).  Both these studies support that homeowners have better mental health.

Housing environments can affect our respiratory system and our mental health, but can it affect our immune system? Yes! Our immune system is an important part of our body that helps us stay healthy. As we age our immune system ages with us. There are tests that can look for signs of immune system aging. In a research study they did just that. What they found is that people who experienced housing instability had immune systems that were more aged than people who had stable housing (MacConnachie et al. 2024). This means the people who experienced housing instability would have a harder time fighting off infections like colds and viruses. Immune systems in children have also been studied. This research showed that parents who owned their home longer had children who didn’t get the common cold as easily (Cohen et al. 2013). This research suggests that owning your home could have a positive impact on your health, even at the cellular level!

Cited sources:

  1. Barakat C, & Konstantinidis T. (2023). A Review of the Relationship between Socioeconomic Status Change and Health. International Journal Of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(13), 6249. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20136249
  2. Buckman, J.E.J, Saunders, R., Stott, J., Cohen, Z.D., Arundell, L.L., Eley, T.C., Hollon, S.D., Kendrick, T., Ambler, G., Watkins, E., Gilbody, S., Kessler, D., Wiles, N., Richards, D., Brabyn, S., Littlewood, E., DeRubeis, R.J., Lewis, G., & Pilling, S. (2022). Socioeconomic Indicators of Treatment Prognosis for Adults With Depression: A Systematic Review and Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 79(5), 406-416. 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.0100
  3. Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., Turner, R.B., Marsland, A.L., Casselbrant, M.L., Li-Korotky, H.S., Epel, E.S., & Doyle, W.J. (2013). Childhood socioeconomic status, telomere length, and susceptibility to upper respiratory infection. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 34, 31-8. 10.1016/j.bbi.2013.06.009
  4. Ettman, C.K., Cohen, G.H., Vivier, P.M., & Galea, S. (2021) Savings, home ownership, and depression in low-income US adults. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 56(7), 1211-1219. 10.1007/s00127-020-01973-y
  5. Jacobs, D.E. (2011). Environmental Health Disparities in Housing. American Journal of Public Health 101, S115_S122, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2010.300058
  6. Kim, B., Mulready-Ward, C., Thorpe, L.E., & Titus, A.R. (2022). Housing environments and asthma outcomes within population-based samples of adults and children in NYC. Preventive Medicine,161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107147.
  7. MacConnachie, L., Zhang, Y. S., Farina, M., Gutierrez, C., Hoover, A., He, Y., Aiello, A. E., & Noppert, G. A. (2024). The association between incarceration and housing insecurity and advanced immune age during late life. Social Science & Medicine, 347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116698

All facts and data were compiled by Pearl Griffiths

University of Washington School of Medicine

Practicing student at TriState Health, Clarkston

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