Housing and health: an updated glossary.

Recent crises have underscored the importance that housing has in sustaining good health and, equally, its potential to harm health. Considering this and building on Howden-Chapman's early glossary of housing and health and the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines, this paper introduces a range of housing and health-related terms, reflecting almost 20 years of development in the field. It defines key concepts currently used in research, policy and practice to describe housing in relation to health and health inequalities. Definitions are organised by three overarching aspects of housing: affordability (including housing affordability stress (HAS) and fuel poverty), suitability (including condition, accessibility and sustainable housing) and security (including precarious housing and homelessness). Each of these inter-related aspects of housing can be either protective of, or detrimental to, health. This glossary broadens our understanding of the relationship between housing and health to further promote interdisciplinarity and strengthen the nexus between these fields.

The effect of local housing allowance reductions on overcrowding in the private rented sector in England

Ensuring housing affordability while controlling government expenditure is a concern in many countries. In the UK support for private renters is delivered via an income-related housing benefit calculated using the Local Housing Allowance. As part of a programme to reduce government spending the support provided by the Local Housing Allowance was significantly reduced in 2011, and ongoing changes to its uprating have further reduced its value. These changes have raised concerns about the suitability of homes people receiving the allowance can afford. Using a natural experiment approach by applying matching and difference-in-difference methods to housing stock data from the English Housing Survey, this research finds a statistically significant 5% increase in overcrowding for housing benefit recipients following the changes to the Local Housing Allowance, equivalent to approximately 75,000 additional households living in overcrowded conditions. Longer-term results show that overcrowding continued to increase as changes to the uprating system further reduced the value of housing benefit. The decision to reduce the Local Housing Allowance and sever its relationship with actual rents has therefore reduced the ability of recipients to access suitable housing which will have had important implications for health and well-being, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Housing Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)