CDC Healthy Housing

Guide for understanding the shared responsibility of public health and housing professionals in ensuring that housing is safe decent and affordable.

Housing quality is key to the public’s health. Translating that simple axiom into action is the topic of this book. In the 30 years since the first edition was published, the nation’s understanding of how specific housing conditions are related to disease and injury has matured and deepened. This new edition will enable public health and housing professionals to grasp our shared responsibility to ensure that our housing stock is safe, decent, affordable, and healthy for our citizens, especially those who are particularly vulnerable and who spend more time in the home, such as children and the elderly.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have worked together with many others to discover the ways to eliminate substandard housing conditions that harm health. For example, the advances in combating water borne diseases was possible, in part, through standardization of indoor plumbing and sewage, and…