Healthy Homes Assessment Tools
Housing conditions can significantly affect public health. Many factors influence health and safety in homes, including structural and safety aspects of the home; quality of indoor air; water quality; chemicals; resident behavior; and the house's immediate surroundings. Such factors support or detract from the health of those who live there.
Childhood lead poisoning, injuries, respiratory diseases such as asthma, and quality of life issues have been linked to the more than 6 million substandard housing units nationwide. Residents of these units are also at increased risk for fire, falls, rodent bites, and other illnesses and injuries. Additional issues of concern include exposure to pesticide residues, tobacco smoke, and combustion gases.
Most public health efforts take a single issue approach to health and safety hazards in the home, focusing narrowly on one issue, even in the presence of multiple issues. A Healthy Homes approach is holistic and comprehensive and provides public health professionals, including environmental public health practitioners, public health nurses, and housing specialists, the requisite training and tools necessary to address the broad range of housing deficiencies and hazards associated with unhealthy and unsafe homes.
- Boston Healthy Homes Initiative Checklist (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Project) [PDF - 42 KB]
- Asthma Regional Council Property Maintenance for a Healthy Home [PDF - 233 KB]
- Asthma Regional Council Simple Steps to a Asthma Ready Home Checklist [PDF - 86 KB]
- CDC Environmental Health Services Building Capacity Grantee Product Catalog
- CDC Injury Prevention & Control: Home and Recreational Safety
- Environmental Working Group Healthy Housing Checklist
- Community and Home Injury Prevention Project for Seniors San Francisco Home Safety Checklist Summary
- National Center for Healthy Housing Healthy Housing Checklist [PDF - 497 KB]
- New York City Healthy Homes Checklist [PDF - 274 KB]
- Health Before Pregnancy Environmental Checklist [PDF - 98 KB]
- Surgeon General Healthy Homes Checklist [PDF - 1.58 MB]
- Texas (Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services) Healthy Homes Checklist [PDF - 310 KB]
- Environmental Defence Canada Healthy Home_Checklist [PDF - 172 KB]
- Page last reviewed: June 15, 2013
- Page last updated: October 15, 2013
- Content source:
National Center for Environmental Health, Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services