Public housing, public health: health needs of public housing tenants

Objectives: To determine the health needs of public housing tenants, measured in terms of self-reported health status, health risk factors and expressed need for health risk reduction intervention. Method: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a randomly selected sample of public housing tenants in the Hunter Region of New South Wales. Results: Of 463 contactable tenants, 329 consented to participate in the study. Participants were 2.5 times more likely to rate their health as fair or poor relative to the community generally, and visited a doctor twice as often. The prevalence of smoking was more than twice that of the community generally, and the prevalence of falls was approximately three times greater. Risk of injury due to domestic violence was approximately six times greater, and the risk of injury due to violence in other locations was more than double that in the community. Between a quarter and a half of the participants requested support to reduce their health risks. Conclusions: The findings suggest that public housing tenants are one of the more severely health-compromised groups in the Australian community. Implications: An urgent need exists for public health initiatives that are directed at improving not only the current markedly poorer health status of public housing tenants, but also the greater prevalence of health risk factors that predict a likely continuation of such differentials into the future.