Improved housing conditions can save lives, prevent disease, increase quality of life, reduce poverty, and help mitigate climate change. Housing is becoming increasingly important to health in light of urban growth, ageing populations and climate change.  David Jacobs, PhD, director of the U.S. Collaborating Center for Research and Training on Housing Related Disease and Injury and staff with SPH’s WHO Collaborating Center, was part of a team of international experts who crafted practical recommendations for the WHO to reduce the health burden due to unsafe and substandard housing.

The guidelines take a comprehensive, intersectoral perspective on the issue of housing and health and highlight co-benefits of interventions addressing several risk factors at the same time. The guidelines aim at informing housing policies and regulations at the national, regional, and local level and are further relevant in the daily activities of implementing actors who are directly involved in the construction, maintenance, and demolition of housing in ways that influence human health and safety. The guidelines therefore emphasize the importance of collaboration between the health and other sectors and joint efforts across all government levels to promote healthy housing.