New guidelines may avoid big health bills
Newly announced World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines to help improve housing conditions could help the government save millions of dollars, according to researchers.
The recommendations, which cover insulation, heating, crowding issues, disability access and home injury hazards, come just a day after Housing Minister Phil Twyford unveiled new standards for all New Zealand rental homes.
To coincide with the new guidelines Dr Lynn Riggs, a fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, wanted to look into the costs that occurred due to illness and injury caused by poor housing conditions.
What Riggs, and a team of researchers from He Kainga Oranga found was that preventable injuries and hospitalisations due solely to poor housing conditions could be costing more than $145 million annually in ACC claims and hospitalisation costs.
Otago University Professor of Public Health Philippa HowdenChapman, the co-author of the research and chair of the international guidelines group, said the recommendations were developed because WHO members recognised the importance of housing to health due to demographic and climate changes. ‘‘The guidelines are a world first and bring together the most recent evidence to provide practical recommendations on how to improve housing conditions. We are hopeful the guidelines will assist in helping to turn around the type of preventable health costs identified in this latest research.’’
Howden-Chapman said previous research conducted in New Zealand had generally focused on the effect of a single housing condition on health outcomes and the associated burden of disease, rather than take a broader look.
She said the research published yesterday helped build on that research to estimate the combined burden of disease from multiple housing conditions – damp, cold, mould, and disrepair.
The study found that homes that were damp or mouldy caused more than 35,000 nights in hospital with an associated cost of about $35m.
A total of 32 per cent of homes in New Zealand reported problems with damp or mould.
‘‘That $35m does not include, for example, costs of time lost from work or school while patients are in hospital, nor does it include GP visits or pharmaceutical costs,’’ Riggs says.
Unsurprisingly, she said, the statistics were worse the lower the income of the household.
Additionally, rental properties appeared to be the most problematic.
‘‘In the year from April 2014 to March 2015, 15 per cent of owneroccupier homes were reported to be cold, compared with 35 per cent of rental homes.’’
Riggs acknowledged that it was was often expensive to fix problems with housing but stressed that not fixing them was also costly.
‘‘Previous research has estimated broader societal costs from home falls alone at over $5 billion per year.’’
Howden-Chapman said the launch of the guidelines was very significant.
‘‘These guidelines provide very practical recommendations to improve housing and can help ensure that we not only have enough housing, but it is also healthy housing which adds to our wellbeing.’’