Elaborates eleven basic principles governing the relationship between features of the housing environment and the health of inhabitants. Primarily concerned with conditions in developing countries, the book serves as both an alert to the range of housing-related factors that influence health and a plea to consider these factors in development schemes. Throughout, statements and recommendations take their authority from evidence documenting the direct links between poor housing conditions and increased risks of death, disease, and injury. The opening chapter explains the main reasons why most existing human dwellings fail to protect inhabitants from well-documented hazards of the physical and social environments. Against this background, the book presents eleven health principles of housing subdivided into two main parts. The first sets forth the relationship between housing conditions and health in a series of six major principles. These serve to define basic housing requirements compatible with health needs while also giving development planners a checklist of essential structural and environmental criteria. Whether concerning safeguards against disease transmission or housing for groups at special risk, each principle acknowledges that the impact of housing depends as much on human behaviour as on the physical features of site, structure, design, and social amenities. Details range from a list of the most common sources of indoor air pollution to five features of a dwelling environment that can reduce unhealthy psychosocial stresses to a minimum. Principles in the second half of the book define several public health approaches needed to ensure that maximum health benefit is obtained from housing improvements. Approaches outlined include advocacy for the health value of adequate housing, changes in economic and social policies, the improvement of norms for housing design and construction, and the use of community organizations in alliance with outside assistance. Readers are also given examples of common errors in the design of housing projects known to have an adverse effect on the health and safety of dwellings and neighbourhoods.

eng fre spa.

tam.

WHODOC

WHO monograph

4