"She's a Family Member": How Community Health Workers Impact Perinatal Mothers' Stress Through Social-Emotional Support and Connections to Programs and Resources.

Introduction: This study examines whether being a client in the Northwest Ohio Pathways HUB program reduces stress and improves mental wellbeing for perinatal mothers. The HUB works to improve health by connecting mothers to community health workers (CHWs) who assess mothers' risk factors and connect them to evidence-based care pathways to reduce known risks associated with adverse birth outcomes.

Methods: A one-time survey of 119 mothers in the program and monthly semi-structured interviews with 41 mothers, totaling 220 interviews.

Community-Academic Partnership to Assess the Role of Physical Disinvestment on Firearm Violence in Toledo, OH.

Reversing physical disinvestment, e.g., by remediating abandoned buildings and vacant lots, is an evidence-based strategy to reduce urban firearm violence.

Home modifications to reduce injuries from falls in the home injury prevention intervention (HIPI) study: a cluster-randomised controlled trial.

Background: Despite the considerable injury burden attributable to falls at home among the general population, few effective safety interventions have been identified. We tested the safety benefits of home modifications, including handrails for outside steps and internal stairs, grab rails for bathrooms, outside lighting, edging for outside steps, and slip-resistant surfacing for outside areas such as decks and porches.

Methods: We did a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled trial of households from the Taranaki region of New Zealand.

Modelling the effects of low indoor temperatures on the lung function of children with asthma.

Introduction: While many epidemiological studies have shown that low outdoor temperatures are associated with increased rates of hospitalisation and mortality (especially for respiratory or cardiovascular disease), very few studies have looked at the association between indoor temperatures and health. Such studies are clearly warranted, as people have greater exposure to the indoor environment than the outdoor environment.

Objectives: To examine the relationship between various metrics of indoor temperature and lung function in children with asthma.

Formulating a programme of repairs to structural home injury hazards in New Zealand.

Home injuries are a substantial health burden worldwide, with the home setting being at least as important as the road for injury. Focusing on common injury hazards presented by the home environment, we sought to examine the justification for significant expenditure on safety-related repairs to the housing stock. Trained inspectors assessed 961 New Zealand houses for injury hazards.

A measure for quantifying the impact of housing quality on respiratory health: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Damp and mould in homes have been established as risk factors for respiratory health. There is a need for a relatively straightforward assessment of the home that quantifies this risk.

Methods: Using data from 891 New Zealand houses, the utility of a Respiratory Hazard Index quantifying key attributes related to damp and mould was tested by studying its associations with self-reported respiratory symptoms.

Assessing housing quality and its impact on health, safety and sustainability.

Background: The adverse health and environmental effects of poor housing quality are well established. A central requirement for evidence-based policies and programmes to improve housing standards is a valid, reliable and practical way of measuring housing quality that is supported by policy agencies, the housing sector, researchers and the public.

Methods: This paper provides guidance on the development of housing quality-assessment tools that link practical measures of housing conditions to their effects on health, safety and sustainability, with particular reference to tools developed in New Zealand and England.

Effects of improved home heating on asthma in community dwelling children: randomised controlled trial.

Objective: To assess whether non-polluting, more effective home heating (heat pump, wood pellet burner, flued gas) has a positive effect on the health of children with asthma.

Design: Randomised controlled trial.

Setting: Households in five communities in New Zealand.

Association between the number of home injury hazards and home injury.

Although the home is a major setting for injury morbidity and mortality, there are few proven effective interventions for reducing home injury risk. To inform future research or interventions, this study measures associations between home injury hazards and home injury from a sample of New Zealand households. Logistic regression was used to assess the association between injury hazards identified by a building inspection and injuries requiring medical or associated services that occurred to household members prior to the inspection.

Effect of insulating existing houses on health inequality: cluster randomised study in the community.

Objective: To determine whether insulating existing houses increases indoor temperatures and improves occupants' health and wellbeing.

Design: Community based, cluster, single blinded randomised study.

Setting: Seven low income communities in New Zealand.

Fibrin independent proinflammatory effects of tissue factor in experimental crescentic glomerulonephritis.

Background: Tissue factor initiated glomerular fibrin deposition is an important mediator of injury in crescentic glomerulonephritis. Recent data have suggested noncoagulant roles for tissue factor in inflammation.

Methods: To test the hypothesis that in addition to its effects in initiating coagulation, tissue factor has proinflammatory effects in glomerulonephritis, rabbits given crescentic anti-glomerular basement membrane (GBM) antibody-induced glomerulonephritis were defibrinogenated with ancrod.