Health Impact of Housing Programs
While not providing direct evidence of the effectiveness of the emergency response measures, Menzies would also draw the attention of the Review Board to research undertaken by Professor Bailie in developing methods to monitor the environmental health and mental health impact of housing programs in remote Indigenous communities. Attached are abstracts of two recent presentations by Professor Bailie’s team which demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods. This work demonstrates that monitoring the health impact of housing programs is possible, and should be initiated as part of the emergency intervention. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for this or future reviews to draw any conclusions about the impact and effectiveness of the emergency response measures in the absence of prospectively planned and implemented data collection that is designed specifically to assess these measures.
Menzies’ work should be seen to complement the findings of the Health Habitat Program3, which recently demonstrated that most homes in remote Aboriginal communities have inadequate health hardware. This program also documented, similar to Menzies, that the health impacts of housing can be documented and monitored. Importantly, they also found that many homes in remote communities can be repaired to a habitable standard. In other words, although new housing is needed, there is much that can be achieved, at lower cost and with greater ease, by repairing and maintaining existing housing stock.
3. Torzillo, PJ, Photeros, P, Rainow, S, Barker, G, Sowerbutts, T, Short, T, Irvine, A (2008) The State of Rural Health Hardware in Aboriginal Communities in Rural and Remote Australia in Aust NZ Journal of Public Health, 32 (1): 711