US housing insecurity and the health of very young children

D.B. Cutts, A.F. Meyers, M.M. Black, P.H. Casey, M. Chilton, J.T. Cook, J. Geppert, S.E. De Cuba, T. Heeren, S. Coleman, R. Rose-Jacobs and D.A. Frank

American Journal of Public Health, 2011, vol. 101, issue 8, 1508-1514

Abstract: Objectives: We investigated the association between housing insecurity and the health of very young children. Methods: Between 1998 and 2007, we interviewed 22069 low-income caregivers with children younger than 3 years who were seen in 7 US urban medical centers. We assessed food insecurity, child health status, developmental risk, weight, and housing insecurity for each child's household. Our indicators for housing insecurity were crowding ( 1 family/residence) and multiple moves (≤2 moves within the previous year). Results: After adjusting for covariates, crowding was associated with household food insecurity compared with the securely housed (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=1.30; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.18, 1.43), as were multiple moves (AOR=1.91; 95% CI=1.59, 2.28). Crowding was also associated with child food insecurity (AOR=1.47; 95% CI=1.34, 1.63), and so were multiple moves (AOR=2.56; 95% CI=2.13, 3.08). Multiple moves were associated with fair or poor child health (AOR=1.48; 95% CI=1.25, 1.76), developmental risk (AOR 1.71; 95% CI=1.33, 2.21), and lower weight-for-age z scores (-0.082 vs -0.013; P=.02). Conclusions: Housing insecurity is associated with poor health, lower weight, and developmental risk among young children. Policies that decrease housing insecurity can promote the health of young children and should be a priority.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300139

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2011.300139_9

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2011.300139

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().