Saegert SC, Klitzman S, Freudenberg N, Cooperman-Mroczek J, Nassar S. Healthy housing: a structured review of published evaluations of U.S. interventions to improve health by modifying housing in the U.S., 1990-2001. Am J Public Health 2003; 93: 1471-1477.
Summary: This article is a review of72 housing interventions in the United States. The majority of strategies address single conditions in children but issues affecting seniors and policy interventions are also discussed.
General Concensus: Reviews for this article were split down the middle. Some students thought the authors spent a lot to time reiterating charts already presented in the text while other students praised the format of their literature reviews. Many students were disappointed that only 2 of the 72 studies reviewed in the article examined policy interventions. Some students lamented the lack of good research and felt this article was a perfect example of "research for research's sake." Most students wanted more detail on the intervention outcomes and more evaluation of strategies at higher and/or multiple levels.
Additional Comments:
"One thing that struck me about this article is that most studies only examined individual level factors and were unable to investigate effectiveness over time." (EPI)
"This article only focused on the characteristics of the intervention setting/population, who sponsored or funded the intervention, the design of the intervention, and how the intervention was evaluated as opposed to describing what the interventions were. In short, the only real use this article has to me is in the references." (ENVH)
"This article was sort of depressing. In some ways I feel it's addressing the old school public health professionals that are facing retirement in the next few years. The narrow, top down, approach to addressing health issues in housing is really an inefficient and ineffective way to make lasting health improvements." (HSERV)
"I found this study to very succinctly summarize a huge body of evidence and provides a framework for me to think about how to summarize the state of evidence relating to environmental attributes I'm studying as well as give direction for my own study questions." (EPI)