Healthy Housing

Research Overview

A quarter of Australia’s disease burden is comprised of cardiovascular disease, COPD, anxiety, depression, asthma, falls and injury. All such health issues have been at least partly attributed to housing. While other high-income countries have actively and successfully used housing to reduce their burden of disease, Australian policy and research has failed to bridge disciplinary silos. Furthermore, housing interventions in Australia have only inadvertently improved health, missing the opportunity for evidenced based housing improvement for efficient health gain.

Aims:

  • Generate high quality epidemiological research on the relationship between housing and health.
  • Model the effect of housing focussed interventions on health.
  • Train and mentor a new generation of scholars to conduct rigorous research on Healthy Housing.
  • Translate and disseminate our work to policy makers, thought leaders, media, and the public and reinforce the message that social determinants of health are primary drivers of population health.

Current projects: 

Projects based in Healthy Housing Unit

  • National Health and Medical Research Council Centre (NHMRCC) for Research Excellence in Healthy Housing
  • ARC Discovery - Closing the housing gap: A spotlight on intergenerational inequalities
  • NHMRC Ideas Grant - Evidence for action on cold, damp and mould in Australian homes

Non-lead projects

  • Health lens lead in UoM Hallmark Research Initiative in Affordable Housing
  • 2 ARC LIEF Grants conducting housing condition surveys as critical data infrastructure
  • AHURI Research Grant – Housing and wellbeing in Australia
  • AHURI Research Grant – Renting in the time of COVID

Twitter - @Housing_CRE

Website - www.healthyhousing-cre.org

Email - healthyhousing-cre@unimelb.edu.au

Staff

  • Professor Rebecca Bentley (Unit Head)
  • Dr Ang Li (Healthy Housing Research Fellow)
  • Erika Martino (Healthy Housing Research Fellow)
  • Adelle Mansour (Healthy Housing Research Fellow)
  • Dr Kate Mason (Healthy Housing Research Fellow)
  • Amber Howard (Research Assistant)
  • Holly Jones (Research Assistant)
  • Yuxi Li (Research Assistant)
  • Macken Stirling (Research Assistant)
  • Matthew Toll (Research Assistant)
  • Molly Fairweather (Research Assistant)

Graduate Researchers

  • Yuxi Li - Children’s health and housing
  • Amber Howard - Intergenerational inequalities in health (joint PhD with Uni Amsterdam)
  • Sheenagh McShane - Refugee housing
  • Erika Martino - Housing and domestic violence

Honours students 2022

  • Taabish Nomani - Housing and mental health

Funding

The Healthy Housing CRE is a 5-year project funded by the NHMRC from 2020-2025.

Research Projects

School Research Themes

Data science, health metrics and disease modeling, Disparities, disadvantage and effective health care


Key Contact

For further information about this research, please contact Unit Head Professor Rebecca Bentley

Department / Centre

Centre for Health Policy

Unit / Centre

Healthy Housing

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