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Leading Health Homeward Bound

Environmental Health Initiatives Focus Inside—and Outside—the Home is synonymous with security and comfort, yet also dwelling within millions of houses is a host of potential health hazards. Childhood lead poisoning, injuries, and respiratory diseases such as asthma have been linked to the more than 6 million substandard housing units nationwide. Residents of these units are also at increased risk for fire, electrical injuries, falls, rodent bites, and other illnesses and injuries.

With most Americans spending an average of 90% of their time indoors, taking a good look inside makes good public health sense. CDC’s Healthy Homes Initiative is a coordinated, comprehensive, and holistic approach to preventing diseases and injuries that result from housing-related hazards. The initiative’s goal is to identify health, safety, and quality-of-life issues in the home environment and to systematically eliminate or mitigate problems.

New products from the initiative include the Healthy Housing Reference Manual, written by staff from CDC and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The manual helps public health and housing professionals ensure that housing stock is safe, decent, affordable, and healthy for our citizens, particularly children and the elderly, who are often most vulnerable and spend more time in the home. The initiative also includes the development of the Healthy Homes Clearinghouse, which will include six regional academic centers. (See www.healthyhousing.org.)

The environment outside our homes also has a large influence on our health. The air we breathe. The water we drink. The roads we share. From home to workplace to community, CDC is looking at an increasing range of ways in which the built environment impacts health. Recent contributions include a national satellite broadcast at the University of North Carolina looking at “place-specific” health issues and grants funding research on obesity and the built environment. Studies of mixed use neighborhoods that have homes, businesses, schools in one location will assess physical activity and travel behaviors before and after individuals move in.

CDC continues to provide leadership in its own community through sustainable building, water conservation, and workplace wellness. In 2006, HHS selected CDC’s Arlen Specter Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center on the Roybal campus and Building 110 on the Chamblee campus to be featured in its Energy Leadership poster as a model for other federal agencies to adopt similar building practices.

Recognizing that drought is a worldwide issue with major health consequences, CDC also exerts leadership in water conservation. During Georgia’s current drought, CDC facilities benefited from having been engineered to collect and recycle water through green designs – steps that lead to significantly reduced water consumption.

At the same time, CDC’s Healthier Worksite Initiative is developing projects and implementing plans for green activities and health promotion activities, including recycling, campus garden markets, employee van pools, new E-health tools, and green teams to address various environmental issues.