This article outlines 23 legal mechanisms, or levers, that may impact health equity in housing in the United States, and reviews the evidence base evaluating each lever.
The article introduces a model that divides the levers among five core domains intended to promote greater health equity in housing:
For public health, concerns about nuisance property ordinances are important, both because of the general importance of stable housing to personal and family health and because of the particularly severe consequences of eviction. Although other laws may protect the housing rights of domestic violence survivors, the fact that the main housing laws so rarely protect victims of domestic violence is concerning, purely on the level of legal doctrine and public policy.
This map identifies and displays key features of state-level landlord-tenant laws across all 50 states and the District of Columbia in effect August 1, 2017 through August 1, 2019.
This map identifies and displays key features of city nuisance property ordinances across the 40 most populous cities in the United States in effect from August 1, 2017 through August 1, 2019.
This dataset includes nearly 80 components of ordinances that govern the maintenance and inspection of existing housing, including provisions for habitability, injury, mold and pest prevention, air quality and lead and other toxins, including tobacco smoke, in the home. The ordinances presented here cover unincorporated King County, and all 39 municipalities therein.
Childhood lead poisoning is widely recognized as one of the most significant environmental health problems impacting children in the United States, as well as many other countries. Lead is one of the longest-known, best-understood, and most well-monitored environmental toxins. Most (but not all) children with elevated blood lead levels are exposed to lead through lead hazards in older housing. Local policy approaches aim to reduce childhood lead poisoning by reducing the prevalence of lead hazards in high-risk housing, and do so by improving maintenance practices and controlling lead hazards.
This study considers mandates requiring the partial replacement of lead pipes and the potential impact on rates of lead in the water.
The cumulative mass of lead release indicated that a typical partial replacement configuration did not provide a net reduction in lead when compared to 100 percent lead pipe. The partially replaced service line configuration also had a much greater likelihood of producing water with "spikes" of lead particulates at higher flow rates, while tending to produce lower levels of lead at very low flow rates.
The Philadelphia Lead Court (PLC) was created as an innovative law enforcement strategy to compel property owners to comply with city health codes to remediate their properties of lead hazards, which had led to elevated blood lead levels and lead poisoning in resident children. This study presents a detailed account of and analyzes the opinions of fifteen key informants drawn from the Philadelphia health and law departments and judicial system that staff and run the PLC in response to a fifteen-question structured survey.
