What is the health impact of poor housing?

Housing is widely recognised as a key social determinant of health. Living in substandard housing can exacerbate the risk of several physical and mental health outcomes. Our rapid evidence synthesis examined the impact of various housing conditions on health to inform a forthcoming project by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

We examined two questions:

• What is the evidence that housing quality and condition affects the physical and mental health of residents?
• What is the evidence that different ways of improving housing quality and condition affects the physical and mental health of residents?

In March 2024, we systematically searched Medline and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for existing syntheses of evidence related to these questions. In total, we identified 40 relevant systematic reviews. We found low to moderate certainty evidence that houses with damp, mould, inadequate warmth, and inadequate air quality are associated with various aspects of physical health, including poorer respiratory health and cardiovascular health. In addition, hazardous home environments are associated with a greater number of falls at home. There is low to high certainty evidence that improving these housing conditions has a positive effect on several physical health outcomes. The relationship between poor physical housing conditions and mental health is relatively less clear, however there is some evidence of low to moderate certainty that housing precarity and overcrowding are associated with poorer mental health.

Click here to view the report.