Housing & Health Research Program

Housing is well known as a major determinant of health, and although there is substantial associational or anecdotal evidence to link housing with health outcomes, there is a significant absence in Australia of knoweldge around the mechanisms by which housing affects the health and wellbeing outcomes of individuals and their households.  Addresssing this evidence base is a key area of research for CHRUP.

The Housing and Health Research Program, led by Emma baker focuses on policy-relevant and robust evidence on the effects of housing on the health and wellbeing of Australians and their households.  

Some recent findings of note include:

• That health and wellbeing effects of unaffordable housing are substantially greater for households with lower incomes.
• Evidence of a mismatch between individual health and wellbeing needs, and availability and form of housing assistance.
• That unaffordable housing affects the mental health of individuals, over and above the effects of general financial harship.
• The more time individuals spend with housing problems, the greater the cumulative health effect.

We are involved in a number of recently completed, ongoing, and planned projects within this area, such as:

• Pathways to Health & Wellbeing through Housing, funded by the ARC. Please see here for more information.
• Revealing the hidden health effects of housing in Australia: An initial evidence base on health effects among poorly housed Australians, funded by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Adelaide.
• New directions in health inequalities research: Understanding the intersection between housing, employment and health in Australia, funded by the ARC and Homestart.
• Housing Assistance and the Life Course: Understanding the Impact of Policy Alternatives, funded by the ARC.
• The Importance of Gender and Socio Economic Disadvantage for the Health of Popele Living with Disabilities, funded by the ARC.
• Mitigating negative health outcomes of vulnerable and precarious housing, funded by Vichealth. 

Some of our recent publications about housing and health include:

• Baker, E, Bentley, R, Mason, K (2012) 'The mental health effects of housing tenure: Casual or compositional?' Urban Studies, published online 7 June 2010, here.
• Bentley, R, Baker, E, Mason, K (2012) 'Cumulative exposure to poor housing affordability and its association with mental health in men and women', Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 66 (9), pp. 761-6.
• Baker, E, Bentley, R, Mason, K, Mallet, S (forthcoming) 'Exploring the bi-directional relationship between health and housing in Australia', Urban Policy and Research.
• Mason, K, Bentley, R, Baker, E (2012) 'Housing affordability and mental health: Does the relationship differ for renters and homeowners?', paper presented to the Australian Housing Researchers Conference, Adelaide.
• Bentley, R, Baker, E, Mason, K, Subramanian, S, V, and Kavanagh A, M (2011) 'Association between housing affordability and mental health: A longitudinal analysis of a nationally representative household survey in Australia', American Journal of Epidemiology, 174 (7): 753-60.
• Beer, A, Baker, E, Wood, G and Raftery, P (2011) 'Housing policy, housing assistance and the wellbeing dividend: Developing an evidence base for post GFC economies', Housing Studies, 26 (7-8), pp. 1171-92.