Journal
HEALTH AFFAIRS
Volume 33, Issue 12, Pages 2230-2237Publisher
PROJECT HOPE
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2014.1021
Keywords
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Funding
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health
- Lisa and John Pritzker Family Foundation
- STAR by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [FP-91734404]
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Understanding the links between housing and health is increasingly important. Poor housing quality is a predictor of poor health and developmental problems in low-income children. We examined associations between public housing type and recurrent pediatric emergency and urgent care hospital visits. Children ages 0-18 with public insurance who sought emergency care from any of three large medical systems in San Francisco were categorized by whether they lived in public housing redeveloped through the federal HOPE VI program, nonredeveloped public housing, or nonpublic housing in a census tract that also contained public housing. After we adjusted for potential confounding characteristics, we found that children living in nonredeveloped public housing were 39 percent more likely to have one or more repeat visits within one year for acute health care services unrelated to the initial visit, compared to children who lived in redeveloped HOPE VI housing. We observed no differences in repeat visits between children in redeveloped HOPE VI housing and those in nonpublic housing. These findings support the continued redevelopment of public housing as a means of both improving the health of vulnerable high-risk children from low-income neighborhoods and reducing health care costs.
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