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Health gain

In 2010, Sir Michael Marmot's influential report, 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives' - and the subsequent 2020 report 'Marmot Review 10 Years On' - recommended how to reduce health inequalities in England. Importantly, it made several references to the links between public health, housing and the built environment.

These resources include further papers on how housing providers and commissioners can work with colleagues in public health to ensure that housing is central to local plans for health and wellbeing. Evidence of heath gain linked to housing is provided that can be used to influence public health discussions as well as databases and tools to create local profiles.

Commissioning community champions: Lessons from a pandemic

This King’s Fund report explores the role and potential of champions programmes, a community-based approach to health and wellbeing, with particular focus on the lessons learned from the time of the pandemic.

The Cost of Poor Housing in London: Housing Research Note 11

This research by Greater London Authority Housing and Land estimates the annual cost to the NHS of homes in poor condition in London. It also estimates the cost of repairing all the homes in the capital that are in poor condition, calculating how long it would take the savings to pay off the cost of repairs.

The Association of Directors of Public Health Policy Position: Built Environment

The ADPH outline national and local recommendations for ensuring that all our spaces are designed with our health and wellbeing in mind.

The Cost of Ignoring Poor Housing

This research builds on Building Research Establishment's (BRE) earlier Cost of Poor Housing Research and reveals that remedial work to England’s poorest housing (1) could provide £135.5 billion (bn) in societal benefits over the next 30 years.

Building Blocks For Life: Housing and Healthy Neighbourhoods

This paper from the Chartered Institute of Housing looks at the role of housing in tackling health inequalities.

Creating healthy partnerships between public health and housing to tackle health inequalities

Written by Liz Parsons, Head of Public Health – Built Environment and Social Housing across Milton Keynes City, Central Bedfordshire and Bedford Borough councils, this Housing LIN blog shares insight into an exciting and innovative health and housing partnership.

Evidence Review: Housing and Health Inequalities in London

This evidence review, published by Institute of Health Equity, considers the evidence for housing interventions that support health and that can contribute to reducing health inequalities.

Creating spaces for community and patient wellbeing

This project report by the Health Creation Alliance provides key insight for narrowing health inequalities, drawing on 10 different community settings - accessing and using the various repurposed NHS spaces.

Health and place: How levelling up health can keep older workers working

This report, published by the International Longevity Centre UK, seeks to understand how the health of older people in the place where they live impacts on people staying in work for longer.

Smoking and social housing: Supporting residents addressing inequalities

This report, a collaboration between ASH and the Housing LIN, outlines the case for reducing rates of smoking in the social housing sector as part of social landlords’ health and wellbeing activity and the action needed to achieve this.

The Cost of Poor Housing in England

This report, published by Building Research Establishment (BRE), finds Poor housing in England could be costing the National Health Service (NHS) £1.4billion a year in treatment bills.

The Cost of Inequality – putting a price on health

This paper argues that supporting people to spend more time in good health could help not just individuals, but boost people’s time in work, reduce health and care costs, as well as welfare costs on the state.

Tobacco control and housing: A case for action from both sides

This leaflet from ASH, the charity on action of smoking and health, provides a range of useful information on the harmful effects on smoking, the link to health inequalities and the impact on housing

Health and wellbeing at home: Advice and resources for everyone spending time indoors

This blog from Public Health England addresses the challenge to remain active during lockdown and shares related information, tips and resources about nutrition and physical activity.

CIEH excess cold enforcement guidance

This guide from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health is aimed at helping practitioners enforce excess cold in the private rented sector.

Helping to prevent winter deaths and illnesses associated with cold homes: A quick guide for home care managers

This Quick Guide by NICE and SCIE provides quick and easy access to information on helping to prevent winter deaths and illnesses associated with cold homes.

A consensus on healthy ageing

This initiative supported by a range of organisations across national and local government, charity and voluntary organisations, public health, academics and the NHS, and has been facilitated by Public Health England and the Centre for Ageing Better.

Creating a Safe and Easily Maintained Garden for Older People

Dimo Koev writes for the Housing LIN about the benefits and enjoyment that gardening can bring.

Foundations for well-being: reconnecting public health and housing.

This report aims to guide the public health and housing sectors in Scotland in their role in improving health and reducing inequalities through the provision of good housing.

Healthy housebuilding: Making 300,000 new homes a year better places to live

This briefing note from UKGBC is the response to a study that covered the features of a home which contribute most significantly to a sense of wellbeing, both physical and mental. It is aimed mostly for Parliamentarians and policy-makers.

Healthy placemaking report

This report produced in collaboration between the Design Council and Social Change UK identifies the attitudes of built environment practitioners towards healthy placemaking.

What makes us healthy? An introduction to the social determinants of health

The Health Foundation have produced this guide explaining how a person’s opportunity for health is influenced by factors outside the health and social care system.

Awareness and adjustments are key to tackling health inequalities

VODG have released this report to set out what social care providers believe can help or hinder the health treatment of people supported.

Cold Homes Toolkit

The CABx and Cornwall Council have produced this toolkit to help Local Authorities and Health Trusts to tackle fuel poverty.

Reaching Out: Influencing the wider determinants of health

This report from the New Local Government Network welcomes the progress of local authorities in collaboration with public health teams, but calls for more investment to be provided by local government.

Building our Future: Laying the Foundations for Healthy Homes and Buildings

This green paper from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for healthy homes and buildings sets out key recommendations on what needs to be done to ensure that all our homes and buildings are healthy and do not create or exacerbate health issues.

Constancy and Change: Key Issues in Housing and Health Research

This article by Roderick J Lawrence in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health highlights the low impact of scientiﬁc research on the relations between housing and health during the last 30 years.

The Case for Investing in Prevention: Housing

This is one in a series of short reports from Public Health Wales examining the case for investment in prevention activities. Each report includes a review of the literature which, aims to provide an...

Closing the health gap - a gap worth closing: How housing can play its part in reducing health inequalities

This Housing LIN Practice Briefing equips housing, care and support practitioners, and public health teams, with ideas about practical actions they can take to reduce health inequalities. It draws attention...

Health and housing guides provide roadmap for integrated working

Public Health England (PHE) and the Housing Learning & Improvement Network (Housing LIN) have published three practical resources aimed at improving services around housing and end of life care,...

Health and Wellbeing in Homes

This report by the UK Green Building Council calls for a concerted effort to shift the market towards a focus on the mental, social and physical health and wellbeing of the people who occupy the homes...

Public Health in a Changing Climate

This report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reviews current local strategies and actions to address climate change by public health departments and their partners. It explores barriers and opportunities...

Affordable warmth & health impact evaluation toolkit

This toolkit by the Centre for Sustainable Energy, in partnership with the Department for Energy and Climate Change, aims to make evaluation of the health and wellbeing impacts of affordable warmth schemes...

Older people and alcohol misuse: Helping people stay in their homes

This Housing LIN Practice Briefing is for people working in housing, public health, care and support. Recognising a gap in information on this topic, Public Health England commissioned the Housing LIN...

End of Life Care: Helping people to be cared for and die at home

This Housing LIN Practice Briefing looks at the importance of end of life care delivered at home, describing the context, inequalities in end of life care, examples of good or emerging practice, and...

Active Ageing and the Built Environment

This Housing LIN Practice Briefing looks at active ageing and the different aspects of the built environment that can promote and sustain it, with examples of good and emerging practice and resources...

Marmot Indicators 2015

Launched by the Institute of Health Equity, this is a new set of indicators of the social determinants of health, health outcomes and social inequality, that broadly correspond to the six policy recommendations...

The district council contribution to public health: a time of challenge and opportunity

This report from the District Councils' Network in 2015 covers the contribution district councils make in improving the health of their citizens and communities. It focuses on district councils' role...

Public Health: Housing workforce holds the key

Public Health England commissioned Sitra to carry out: a study on the impact of the housing workforce on health outcomes, build case studies and develop a suite of training to enable housing providers...

Housing and health resource

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health have launched a new online resource to raise awareness of the impact poor housing can have on the physical and mental health of the people living in them....

National Conversation on Health Inequalities

This Public Heath England toolkit is aimed at local authorities and sets out how they can reduce health inequalities in their local communities. It includes a selection of examples of practice and video...

Public Health in Planning: Good Practice Guide

The guide from the Town and Country Planning Association is a practical resource produced to help public health and planning colleagues identify where public health can contribute towards the planning...

Public Health and Landscape: Creating Healthy Places

This report by the Landscape Institute is aimed primarily at public health teams and at policy makers. It makes the point that with rising health costs (the NHS's share of GDP has risen in the past...

How to take control

This guide from housing association Family Mosaic health is based on their experience of running a randomised control trial into a new service model to improve the health and wellbeing of our older residents....

Measuring the indirect impact of improved health on wellbeing

This research report from HACT has found that housing associations can demonstrate significant health impact from their community investment activities. Using a wellbeing valuation approach, researchers...

The cost of poor housing to the NHS

This briefing from the Building Research Establishment (BRE) has calculated that the annual cost of poor housing to the NHS is at least £1.4bn. This is more than double the £600m estimate in their 2010...

English Devolution: Local Solutions for a Healthy Nation

This LGA report provides a collection of articles from sector leaders about how local communities building healthy places.

Excess winter deaths and morbidity and the health risks associated with cold homes

This is a guideline from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Who is it for? Commissioners, managers and health, social care and voluntary sector practitioners who deal with vulnerable...

A guide to community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing

This report by Public Health England and NHS England presents the work undertaken in phase 1 of the 'Working in Communities' project. It provides a guide on building confident and connected communities...

Due North: Health Equity inquiry report

There has been a North-South health divide in England for a long time now, with the gap continuing to widen over the past four decades. The causes of health inequality are broadly similar across the...

Healthy Homes, Healthy Lives

This report by the Local Government Association takes a case study approach to examine how the quality of housing affects the health and wellbeing of residents. They show a range of ways in which public...

Tackling health inequality through housing

This briefing under the NHF's Connecting Housing and Health set of papers, provides an overview of the links between housing and health, and the challenge in improving persistent health inequality....

Partnerships with NHS providers to improve hospital discharge and community reablement

This briefing under the NHF's Connecting Housing and Health set of papers, gives an overview of the increase in emergency hospital admissions and the resulting pressures on the health system. Highlighting...

Putting health back into housing

This useful report by the Gloucestershire Affordable Housing Landlords' Forum (GAHLF) sets out 'the offer' from the seven leading local housing providers in the county to the Health and Wellbeing Board....

Health begins at Home

This new pamphlet provides interim results at 6 months from a fascinating Family Mosaic research project being undertaken by the London School of Economics. It seeks to measure and test out the impact...

Routes in Health: Housing and Public Health

This briefing from the NHF for the housing association sector provides a helpful summary of public health priorities and a guide to new roles and responsibilities at a national, regional and local level,...

Developing your local housing offer for health and care

Updated in 2016, this tool acknowledges the significance of housing as a partner and contributor to achieving the aims of health and social care services. With references to latest policy and practice,...

Housing improvement for health and associated socio-economic outcomes

This report from the Cochrane Collaboration sets out findings from a review of available research on the impact of housing improvements on health outcomes. It found that investment that improves thermal...

Fair Society, Healthy Lives - The Marmot Review

Sir Michael Marmots review of public health - A report published in 2010 with recommendations on how to reduce health inequalities in England.

Making the case for public health

These infographics from The King's Fund and the Local Government Association set out key facts about the public health system and the return on investment for some public health interventions, including...

Identifying the health gain from retirement housing

A report by the Institute of Public Care that summarise evidence about the health impact for older people of being able to live in specialist housing. It includes an estimate of savings to public expenditure...

Reducing harm from cold weather - Local government's new public health role

Since April 2014, public health has become the responsibility of local government. This briefing by the Local Government Association for councillors and officers explains the challenges facing councils...

The cost of cold: why we need to protect the health of older people in winter

A report by AgeUK that describes the excess deaths and avoidable ill health linked to poorly insulated homes and fuel poverty. It estimates that cold homes cost the NHS £1.36 billion per year and suggests...

Public health and housing: we can get it right

This briefing paper describes the reforms in public health policy and structure, the national objectives and how housing links with these and makes recommendation about how commissioners in public health...

Health benefits of Lifetime Home Standards

Report by the Building Research Establishment describing the potential savings in health and wider costs associated with applying Lifetime Homes Standards to new housing stock. The costs of applying...

Housing and Health

A briefing about the Decent Homes Programme, its potential impact on health and wellbeing and the implications for excluding private rented housing from the programme. It was produced by the Parliamentary...

Housing & Health uncovered

A detailed study by the Shepherds Bush Housing Association on the impact of housing and the local environment on health, before and after housing improvement, and followed up over a length of time and...

Invest in housing, invest in health

This NHF report for strategic decision makers in the NHS shows how housing associations can make a big contribution to the health agenda. Using case studies from across the West Midlands, East Midlands...

Good housing leads to good health: a toolkit for environmental health practitioners

A toolkit for environmental health practitioners to assess the health impact of conditions within private sector housing and feed into strategies for improving housing and neighbourhoods. Commissioned...

Health risks & health inequalities in housing, an assessment tool

This tool Housing LIN is designed to assess the health risks of housing and the residential environment at the scale of a neighbourhood, housing stock or administrative area. For each health risk, the...

Health Profiles - Local Health

Downloadable maps for local areas that show indicators linked to health such as deprivation, child poverty, age, long-term illness and disability.

Housing Health Cost Calculator

A tool to calculate the health costs of hazards in the home and the savings made where they have been removed or reduced. Published by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) it allows organisations...