The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a 3-year, $750,000 grant the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR), The Hilltop Institute at UMBC, and the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative™ (GHHI) to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the reduction in asthma and associated Medicated expenditures resulting from the implementation of GHHI interventions.
GHHI is a national program spearheaded by the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. GHHI integrates health-based housing interventions with weatherization to create access to healthy homes for children in low-income neighborhoods.
The UMBC study will focus on GHHI interventions in the homes of low-income families with asthma-diagnosed children in Baltimore City. The project will evaluate the extent to which GHHI interventions impact asthma morbidity and health care utilization costs, school absences, utility costs and work-loss days for parents or caregivers of children with asthma. The study will also examine how different levels of GHHI interventions impact post-intervention resident health and overall non-medical and energy cost savings.
The interdisciplinary research team includes principal investigator David Salkever, public policy/MIPAR; co-investigator Michael Abrams, Hilltop; researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health; and co-principal investigator Ruth Ann Norton, executive director of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning/GHHI.
Tags: CAHSS, HilltopInstitute, MIPAR, PublicPolicy
