He Kāinga Oranga: reflections on 25 years of measuring the improved health, wellbeing and sustainability of healthier housing.

This paper reflects on the influences and outcomes of He Kāinga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme over 25 years, and their impact on housing and health policy in Aotearoa and internationally. Working in partnership particularly with Māori and Pasifika communities, we have conducted randomised control trials which have shown the health and broad co-benefits of retrofitted insulation, heating and remediation of home hazards, which have underpinned government policy in the Warm Up NZ-Heat Smart programme and the Healthy Homes Standards for rental housing. These trials have been included as evidence in the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines and led to our designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre on Housing and Wellbeing.

Evaluating natural experiments to measure the co-benefits of urban policy interventions to reduce carbon emissions in New Zealand.

Finding effective policy interventions for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals, such as reducing carbon emissions (SDG 13), which can also enhance good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), is urgent. Many promising interactions occur between sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) and affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), which sit at the centre of integrated urban planning and regeneration. In this paper, we consider the framing and findings of four policies we have evaluated as natural experiments, all of which have important co-benefits, which were not always the focus of the initial policies.

Emissions from the road transport sector of New Zealand: key drivers and challenges.

The transport sector is the fastest growing greenhouse gas-emitting sector in the world and it is also a major source of emissions in New Zealand. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from road transport increased by 84.3% between 1990 and 2016.

A Cost Benefit Analysis of an Active Travel Intervention with Health and Carbon Emission Reduction Benefits.

Active travel (walking and cycling) is beneficial for people’s health and has many co-benefits, such as reducing motor vehicle congestion and pollution in urban areas. There have been few robust evaluations of active travel, and very few studies have valued health and emissions outcomes. The ACTIVE before-and-after quasi-experimental study estimated the net benefits of health and other outcomes from New Zealand’s Model Communities Programme using an empirical analysis comparing two intervention cities with two control cities.

How Economic Analysis Can Contribute to Understanding the Links between Housing and Health.

An economic analysis of housing's linkages to health can assist policy makers and researchers to make better decisions about which housing interventions and policies are the most cost-beneficial. The challenge is to include cobenefits. The adoption in 2015 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals underscores the importance of understanding how policies interact, and the merit of comprehensively evaluating cobenefits.

Understanding the systemic nature of cities to improve health and climate change mitigation.

Understanding cities comprehensively as systems is a costly challenge and is typically not feasible for policy makers. Nevertheless, focusing on some key systemic characteristics of cities can give useful insights for policy to advance health and well-being outcomes. Moreover, if we take a coevolutionary systems view of cities, some conventional assumptions about the nature of urban development (e.

Increasing active travel: results of a quasi-experimental study of an intervention to encourage walking and cycling.

Background: There is increased interest in the effectiveness and co-benefits of measures to promote walking and cycling, including health gains from increased physical activity and reductions in fossil fuel use and vehicle emissions. This paper analyses the changes in walking and cycling in two New Zealand cities that accompanied public investment in infrastructure married with programmes to encourage active travel.

Method: Using a quasi-experimental two-group pre-post study design, we estimated changes in travel behaviour from baseline in 2011 to mid-programme in 2012, and postprogramme in 2013.

Increasing active travel: aims, methods and baseline measures of a quasi-experimental study.

Background: Policy advisers are seeking robust evidence on the effectiveness of measures, such as promoting walking and cycling, that potentially offer multiple benefits, including enhanced health through physical activity, alongside reductions in energy use, traffic congestion and carbon emissions. This paper outlines the 'ACTIVE' study, designed to test whether the Model Communities Programme in two New Zealand cities is increasing walking and cycling. The intervention consists of the introduction of cycle and walkway infrastructure, along with measures to encourage active travel.

Accelerated Biodegradation of Veterinary Antibiotics in Agricultural Soil following Long-Term Exposure, and Isolation of a Sulfamethazine-degrading sp.

The World Health Organization has identified antibiotic resistance as one of the top three threats to global health. There is concern that the use of antibiotics as growth promoting agents in livestock production contributes to the increasingly problematic development of antibiotic resistance. Many antibiotics are excreted at high rates, and the land application of animal manures represents a significant source of environmental exposure to these agents.

Warm homes for older people: aims and methods of a randomised community-based trial for people with COPD.

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is of increasing importance with about one in four people estimated to be diagnosed with COPD during their lifetime. None of the existing medications for COPD has been shown to have much effect on the long-term decline in lung function and there have been few recent pharmacotherapeutic advances. Identifying preventive interventions that can reduce the frequency and severity of exacerbations could have important public health benefits.

Improving health and energy efficiency through community-based housing interventions.

Objectives: Houses designed for one climate and cultural group may not be appropriate for other places and people. Our aim is to find cost-effective ways to improve the characteristics of older homes, ill-fitted for New Zealand's climate, in order to improve the occupants' health.

Method: We have carried out two community randomised trials, in partnership with local communities, which have focused on retrofitted insulation and more effective heating and have two other studies under way, one which focuses on electricity vouchers and the other on housing hazard remediation.

Analysis of common bean expressed sequence tags identifies sulfur metabolic pathways active in seed and sulfur-rich proteins highly expressed in the absence of phaseolin and major lectins.

Background: A deficiency in phaseolin and phytohemagglutinin is associated with a near doubling of sulfur amino acid content in genetically related lines of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), particularly cysteine, elevated by 70%, and methionine, elevated by 10%. This mostly takes place at the expense of an abundant non-protein amino acid, S-methyl-cysteine. The deficiency in phaseolin and phytohemagglutinin is mainly compensated by increased levels of the 11S globulin legumin and residual lectins.

Fate of the antifungal drug clotrimazole in agricultural soil.

Clotrimazole is a broad-spectrum antimycotic drug used for the treatment of dermatological and gynecological infections; it is incompletely broken down during sewage treatment and could potentially reach agricultural land through the application of municipal biosolids or wastewater. In the absence of any environmental fate data, we evaluated the persistence and dissipation pathways of (3)H-clotrimazole during laboratory incubations of agricultural soils. Clotrimazole was removed from a loam (time to dissipate 50% = 68 d), a sandy loam (time to dissipate 50% = 36 d), and a clay loam (time to dissipate 50% = 55 d), with formation of nonextractable residues being the major sink for (3) H.

Fate of the antiretroviral drug tenofovir in agricultural soil.

Tenofovir (9-(R)-(2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl)-adenine) is an antiretroviral drug widely used for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) and Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections. Tenofovir is extensively and rapidly excreted unchanged in the urine. In the expectation that tenofovir could potentially reach agricultural lands through the application of municipal biosolids or wastewater, and in the absence of any environmental fate data, we evaluated its persistence in selected agricultural soils.

Proteomic analysis of common bean seed with storage protein deficiency reveals up-regulation of sulfur-rich proteins and starch and raffinose metabolic enzymes, and down-regulation of the secretory pathway.

A deficiency in major seed storage proteins is associated with a nearly two-fold increase in sulfur amino acid content in genetically related lines of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Their mature seed proteome was compared by an approach combining label-free quantification by spectral counting, 2-DE, and analysis of selective extracts. Lack of phaseolin, phytohemagglutinin and arcelin was mainly compensated by increases in legumin, alpha-amylase inhibitors and mannose lectin FRIL.

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.

Seed storage protein deficiency improves sulfur amino acid content in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): redirection of sulfur from gamma-glutamyl-S-methyl-cysteine.

The contents of sulfur amino acids in seeds of common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are suboptimal for nutrition. They accumulate large amounts of a gamma-glutamyl dipeptide of S-methyl-cysteine, a nonprotein amino acid that cannot substitute for methionine or cysteine in the diet.

Fate of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug naproxen in agricultural soil receiving liquid municipal biosolids.

Naproxen (2-(6-methoxy-2-naphthyl) propionic acid) is widely used for the treatment of pain and swelling associated with arthritis, gout, and other inflammatory conditions. Naproxen has been detected in municipal sewage outflows and in surface waters and could reach agricultural land through the application of municipal biosolids or reclaimed water. The persistence characteristics of naproxen in three agricultural soils were investigated.

Identification and characterization of isoflavonoid specific glycosyltransferase and malonyltransferase from soybean seeds.

Isoflavonoids are a diverse group of biologically active natural products that accumulate in soybean seeds during development. The majority of isoflavonoids are accumulated in the form of their glyco- and malonyl-conjugates in soybean seeds. The conjugation step confers stability and solubility to isoflavone aglycones enabling their compartmentalization to vacuoles or transport to the site of accumulation.

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.