Project Funder: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Project Partners: Boston Medical Center, Boston University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Case Western Reserve, Columbia Reserve, Seattle-King County Public Health, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston Healthy Public Housing Initiation
Project Contact: Jonathan Wilson, jwilson@nchh.org, 443.539.4162
Project Description: Housing conditions are known to exacerbate childhood asthma and contribute to allergen exposures. The National Center for Healthy Housing and its collaborators pooled data on allergen concentration in settled house dust, housing conditions, occupant behavior, demographics, and other data from nine studies covering 950 homes in six U.S. cities. The unadjusted results showed that high cockroach allergen was associated with cracks or holes in walls, water leaks, below-average housekeeping, use of roach control, or visible signs of cockroaches; high dust mite allergen was associated with housing built before 1951 and multifamily; and high mouse allergen was associated with no cat, season (lowest in summer), and visible rodent signs, or use of rodent control. All of these variables were significant in adjusted analysis except water leaks and housekeeping score with cockroach allergen.