Effectiveness and impact of the national Healthy Homes Partnership on occupant health
It is important to translate healthy housing research into real-time action steps that people can take to improve their indoor environment. The Healthy Homes Partnership does this by uniting the efforts of Cooperative Extension professionals at eight universities in the United States. Cooperative Extension is an outreach arm of land-grant universities to provide the public with evidence-based information that can help them make informed decisions. For the last fifteen years the Healthy Homes Partnership has assisted individuals, families, and professionals using a variety of tools, including publications and curricula that addressed mould, safe drinking water, lead poisoning, pests, pesticides and chemicals, carbon monoxide poisoning, radon, and other toxins. The educational toolkit incorporates eight principles of healthy housing (dry, clean, maintained, safe, ventilated, pest-free, contaminant-free, and green) that are widely recognized across federal agencies and national organizations. Using a variety of outreach methods, including programs, exhibits, and media (broadcast, print and social), between September 1, 2014 and November 30, 2015 we had 9,617 direct contacts and 2,000,838 indirect contacts. Effective programming requires an understanding of the audiences, potential barriers, and different tools that can be used to reach them. Increasingly, people are going online for information. With so much information online, it is critical that we provide sources for trustworthy information on healthy housing. In this paper the authors discuss the effectiveness of this comprehensive approach, the different methods of relaying healthy housing research, and provide short, intermediate, and long-term impacts.
