The Benefits of Rental Assistance for Children's Health and School Attendance in the United States.

Programs that provide affordable and stable housing may contribute to better child health and thus to fewer missed days of school. Drawing on a unique linkage of survey and administrative data, we use a quasi-experimental approach to examine the impact of rental assistance programs on missed days of school due to illness. We compare missed school days due to illness among children receiving rental assistance with those who will enter assistance within two years of their interview, the average length of waitlists for federal rental assistance.

Association of Childhood Asthma With Federal Rental Assistance.

Importance: Millions of low-income children in the United States reside in substandard or unaffordable housing. Relieving these burdens may be associated with changes in asthma outcomes.

Objectives: To examine whether participation in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) rental assistance programs is associated with childhood asthma outcomes and to examine whether associations varied by program type (public housing, multifamily housing, or housing choice vouchers).

The Impact of Housing Assistance on the Mental Health of Children in the United States.

Housing assistance policies may lead to improved mental health for children and adolescents by improving housing quality, stability, and affordability. We use a unique data linkage of the National Health Interview Survey and U.S.

Communicating health information to disadvantaged populations.

Interest in the communication of health information among disadvantaged populations has increased in recent years with the shift from a model of patient-provider communication to one of a more empowered healthcare consumer; with the use of new communication technologies that increase the number of channels through which health information may be accessed; and with the steadily increasing number of people without health insurance. Three separate research literatures contribute to our current understanding of this issue. In the medicine and public health literature, disparities in health access and outcomes among socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial groups are now well documented.

The cost-effectiveness of independent housing for the chronically mentally ill: do housing and neighborhood features matter?

Objective: To determine the effects of housing and neighborhood features on residential instability and the costs of mental health services for individuals with chronic mental illness (CMI).

Data Sources: Medicaid and service provider data on the mental health service utilization of 670 individuals with CMI between 1988 and 1993 were combined with primary data on housing attributes and costs, as well as census data on neighborhood characteristics. Study participants were living in independent housing units developed under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness in four of nine demonstration cities between 1988 and 1993.