Perceptions of Physical Inspections as a Tool to Protect Housing Quality and Promote Health Equity

Abstract

Physical inspections that assess how well affordable housing properties meet quality and safety standards help to ensure that low-income tenants live in a healthy built environment. This study was part of a larger Health Impact Assessment (HIA) conducted between January 2012 and November 2013 to inform policymakers about the potential health consequences of a proposed policy decision to align the physical inspections required by housing funding agencies, which would result in a reduction of the frequency of physical inspections. Key informant interviews (n=18) of property managers and tenants were used to explore the inspection process, identification of housing quality issues, and potential effects on the health of affordable housing tenants and the impact on property management practices. Results indicate that physical inspection frequency may be an important trigger for property managers and tenants to adhere to proper maintenance schedules.

An Empirical Comparison of Bias Reduction Methods on Real-World Problems in High-Stakes Policy Settings

“…The Multiple Housing team in San Jose's Code Enforcement Office is tasked with protecting the occupants of properties with three or more units, such as apartment buildings, fraternities, sororities, and hotels. They do so by conducting routine inspections of these properties, looking for everything from blight and pest infestations to faulty construction and fire hazards (see [30] and [40] for a discussion of the importance of housing inspections to public health). Although the city of San Jose inspects all of the properties on its Multiple Housing roster over time, and expects to find minor violations at many of them, it is important that they can identify and mitigate dangerous situations early to prevent accidents.…”

Application of the Public Health Exposome Framework to Estimate Phenotypes of Resilience in a Model Ohio African-American Women’s Cohort

“…Vulnerable populations are likely to live within a mile of a toxic release inventory (TRI) facility [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. A direct association was evident between the presence of TRI facilities and a high-percentage non-White residents and an inverse association between the number of TRI facilities and high socio-economic status (SES) [5].…”