PUBLIC
HEALTH
i:= I
IU
Modern Roles of APHA in Housing CHARLES L. SENN, PE, MSPA
Accomplishments of APHA Participants in the Association's first annual meeting, over 100 years ago, heard far-sighted views in a paper titled "Hygiene of Housing." Throughout the century which followed, the Association continued to play a significant role in defining and outlining the "health" role in housing. It is appropriate that today we begin to take stock of past accomplishments, frankly examine the causes of failures, and chart a course for future, expanded health leadership in this important but too neglected field which is so intimately linked with health, as broadly defined. The Association's "Basic Health Principles of Housing and the Residential Environment" (1971) outlines and documents the goals we seek to achieve in planning, building, and managing housing and the residential environment. Those principles are now being utilized as an important guide in federal development of "performance standards" for housing and its environment. The "APHA-PHS Recommended Housing Ordinance" (1971) establishes the most important portions of the "Basic Health Principles" as the legally enforceable minimum standards for all housing. Recent modifications of the ordinance, developed by Professor Eric Mood in collaboration with the Public Health Service, have made this a code which is approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. While literally thousands of communities have adopted housing codes, enforcement is usually given a low priority and in too many places is badly neglected. Reasons for this lack of effective action in one of the most important elements of public health is due to many factors. The first is lack of national, state, regional, and local leadership. While conservation and environmentalist groups agitate for multi-billion dollar pollution control programs, few are promoting the cause of financial outlays for improving the environment where the poor and minority groups live. Here is an ideal area for the Association's social action program to make major, concentrated efforts. A first step is to modify action toward implementing announced national policy. The Congress and Presidents seem to warmly and determinedly say, "every family is entitled to a decent, safe and sanitary living unit in a satisfactory environment." Some go beyond that modest goal. APHA has adopted a resolution calling for a national policy which would beam on the concept of bringing all 408 AJPH APR I L, 1975, Vol. 65, No. 4
housing, including units of the poor and those receiving welfare, up to the minimum standards of the APHA-PHS Housing Ordinance. Implementation of that resolution by active and effective social action would be a practical means of conformance with the announced and officially pronounced national policy. Among the disastrous results of federal reorganization was the demise of the PHS's Bureau of Community Environmental Management. That agency was a link between "health" and agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which manages most housing and community improvement and planning programs. It linked research arms of the National Institutes of Health with needed research in housing and community planning. It managed lead poisoning, rat, home accidents, and other major health problem-solving units with state and local environmental health agencies. Strong social action should be directed to reestablishing and strengthening such a unit at a high level in the federal hierarchy. The case for a strong national housing and community improvement, planning, and development policy is supported by the "Annual Report to the President and to the Council on Environmental Quality," by the "Citizens' Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality," dated May, 1972. Their recommendations include: prompt and bold federal implementation of research ". . .upon which all sound demographic, social and economic policy must ultimately depend.... Provide more funding for urban recreation facilities .... Devote more effort to planning for facilities where people spend their leisure time." The report emphasizes "quality of urban environment" beyond "streets free of litter, clean air and water, houses free of rats and lead paint." The Committee advocated adequate health and improved housing for promotion of "... a sense of personal dignity and self-respect." They advocated "personal involvement and participation in decisions which so affect the lives" of people who will presumably be affected by housing programs. Many of these recommendations might well be woven into a new policy statement for adoption by the Association.
Administrative Organization Housing improvement is intimately linked with economics. Code enforcement in areas where rent income
does not cover all housing costs is a sure way to reduce the supply of housing through building abandonment. Much more research and social-economic study should be applied to the question of how best to provide housing subsidies which will accomplish the greatest long range goal at the lowest cost. This is a fertile field for "health"-oriented research and study. The Association's action in promoting improved housing should not end with improved housing for the poor! Health leadership can make major contributions toward improving new housing and communities. The Association's "Basic Health Principles of Housing and Its Environment" comprehensively covers all of the elements of housing and the environment which are necessary to promote "physical, mental and social well being." One section advocates community noise control planning to minimize noise from freeways, airports, and industrial sources. It advocates building construction features which
minimize noise transmission from one unit to another and noises produced by equipment like air conditioners, elevators, and other building machinery and equipment. Features necessary to minimize home accidents and injury to pedestrians are detailed. In fact, the principles might well form the basis for performance standards to be used both by designers and officials responsible for approving development and housing plans. In summary, there are major roles for "health" in the nation's most grave task-that of eliminating existing grossly substandard residential areas and in promoting, planning, and developing programs which will maximize the positive health features of future housing and communities.
Mr. Senn is with the School of Public Health, University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Health Sciences, Los Angeles, California 90024.
Editor's Note: The articles which appear in PUBLIC HEALTH BRIEFS have been condensed by the authors for publication in the American Journal of Public Health. An extended version of each report published in this Journal Department is on file at APHA headquarters. Single copies of the extended version are available for a limited period of time from the American Journal of Public Health, APHA, 1015 Eighteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. When requesting the extended report, please cite the title of the published article, name of principal author, and the AJPH issue in which the condensed report appeared in PUBLIC HEALTH BRIEFS.
SYMPOSIUM ON GENETICS AND THE LAW The American Society of Law and Medicine and the National Genetics Foundation will cosponsor a National Symposium on Genetics and the Law, May 19 and 20, 1975, in Boston, MA. The 2-day program, the first of its kind to be held in the United States, will be held at Boston's Copley Plaza Hotel. The symposium will feature a faculty of over 40 nationally and internationally known academicians in law, genetics, ethics, psychiatry, sociology, and theology. Four consecutive sessions will focus on the legal issues in genetics which now confront the law: the Fetus and the Newborn; Genetics Counseling, Mass Screening for Heterozygotes and Homozygotes; Human Experimentation, in Vitro Fertilization and Clonal Man; and Eugenics, Ethics, Law and Society. The program is under the planning and direction of Dr. Aubrey Milunsky, Director, Genetics Laboratory of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Waltham, MA, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. The registration fee, which includes two lunches, is $25 for ASLM members, and $30 for nonmembers. Further information may be obtained by contacting: The American Society of Law and Medicine, 454 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215, or Dr. Milunsky, care of the Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114.
PUBLIC HEALTH BRIEFS
409
HEALTH
i:= I
IU
Modern Roles of APHA in Housing CHARLES L. SENN, PE, MSPA
Accomplishments of APHA Participants in the Association's first annual meeting, over 100 years ago, heard far-sighted views in a paper titled "Hygiene of Housing." Throughout the century which followed, the Association continued to play a significant role in defining and outlining the "health" role in housing. It is appropriate that today we begin to take stock of past accomplishments, frankly examine the causes of failures, and chart a course for future, expanded health leadership in this important but too neglected field which is so intimately linked with health, as broadly defined. The Association's "Basic Health Principles of Housing and the Residential Environment" (1971) outlines and documents the goals we seek to achieve in planning, building, and managing housing and the residential environment. Those principles are now being utilized as an important guide in federal development of "performance standards" for housing and its environment. The "APHA-PHS Recommended Housing Ordinance" (1971) establishes the most important portions of the "Basic Health Principles" as the legally enforceable minimum standards for all housing. Recent modifications of the ordinance, developed by Professor Eric Mood in collaboration with the Public Health Service, have made this a code which is approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. While literally thousands of communities have adopted housing codes, enforcement is usually given a low priority and in too many places is badly neglected. Reasons for this lack of effective action in one of the most important elements of public health is due to many factors. The first is lack of national, state, regional, and local leadership. While conservation and environmentalist groups agitate for multi-billion dollar pollution control programs, few are promoting the cause of financial outlays for improving the environment where the poor and minority groups live. Here is an ideal area for the Association's social action program to make major, concentrated efforts. A first step is to modify action toward implementing announced national policy. The Congress and Presidents seem to warmly and determinedly say, "every family is entitled to a decent, safe and sanitary living unit in a satisfactory environment." Some go beyond that modest goal. APHA has adopted a resolution calling for a national policy which would beam on the concept of bringing all 408 AJPH APR I L, 1975, Vol. 65, No. 4
housing, including units of the poor and those receiving welfare, up to the minimum standards of the APHA-PHS Housing Ordinance. Implementation of that resolution by active and effective social action would be a practical means of conformance with the announced and officially pronounced national policy. Among the disastrous results of federal reorganization was the demise of the PHS's Bureau of Community Environmental Management. That agency was a link between "health" and agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which manages most housing and community improvement and planning programs. It linked research arms of the National Institutes of Health with needed research in housing and community planning. It managed lead poisoning, rat, home accidents, and other major health problem-solving units with state and local environmental health agencies. Strong social action should be directed to reestablishing and strengthening such a unit at a high level in the federal hierarchy. The case for a strong national housing and community improvement, planning, and development policy is supported by the "Annual Report to the President and to the Council on Environmental Quality," by the "Citizens' Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality," dated May, 1972. Their recommendations include: prompt and bold federal implementation of research ". . .upon which all sound demographic, social and economic policy must ultimately depend.... Provide more funding for urban recreation facilities .... Devote more effort to planning for facilities where people spend their leisure time." The report emphasizes "quality of urban environment" beyond "streets free of litter, clean air and water, houses free of rats and lead paint." The Committee advocated adequate health and improved housing for promotion of "... a sense of personal dignity and self-respect." They advocated "personal involvement and participation in decisions which so affect the lives" of people who will presumably be affected by housing programs. Many of these recommendations might well be woven into a new policy statement for adoption by the Association.
Administrative Organization Housing improvement is intimately linked with economics. Code enforcement in areas where rent income
does not cover all housing costs is a sure way to reduce the supply of housing through building abandonment. Much more research and social-economic study should be applied to the question of how best to provide housing subsidies which will accomplish the greatest long range goal at the lowest cost. This is a fertile field for "health"-oriented research and study. The Association's action in promoting improved housing should not end with improved housing for the poor! Health leadership can make major contributions toward improving new housing and communities. The Association's "Basic Health Principles of Housing and Its Environment" comprehensively covers all of the elements of housing and the environment which are necessary to promote "physical, mental and social well being." One section advocates community noise control planning to minimize noise from freeways, airports, and industrial sources. It advocates building construction features which
minimize noise transmission from one unit to another and noises produced by equipment like air conditioners, elevators, and other building machinery and equipment. Features necessary to minimize home accidents and injury to pedestrians are detailed. In fact, the principles might well form the basis for performance standards to be used both by designers and officials responsible for approving development and housing plans. In summary, there are major roles for "health" in the nation's most grave task-that of eliminating existing grossly substandard residential areas and in promoting, planning, and developing programs which will maximize the positive health features of future housing and communities.
Mr. Senn is with the School of Public Health, University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Health Sciences, Los Angeles, California 90024.
Editor's Note: The articles which appear in PUBLIC HEALTH BRIEFS have been condensed by the authors for publication in the American Journal of Public Health. An extended version of each report published in this Journal Department is on file at APHA headquarters. Single copies of the extended version are available for a limited period of time from the American Journal of Public Health, APHA, 1015 Eighteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. When requesting the extended report, please cite the title of the published article, name of principal author, and the AJPH issue in which the condensed report appeared in PUBLIC HEALTH BRIEFS.
SYMPOSIUM ON GENETICS AND THE LAW The American Society of Law and Medicine and the National Genetics Foundation will cosponsor a National Symposium on Genetics and the Law, May 19 and 20, 1975, in Boston, MA. The 2-day program, the first of its kind to be held in the United States, will be held at Boston's Copley Plaza Hotel. The symposium will feature a faculty of over 40 nationally and internationally known academicians in law, genetics, ethics, psychiatry, sociology, and theology. Four consecutive sessions will focus on the legal issues in genetics which now confront the law: the Fetus and the Newborn; Genetics Counseling, Mass Screening for Heterozygotes and Homozygotes; Human Experimentation, in Vitro Fertilization and Clonal Man; and Eugenics, Ethics, Law and Society. The program is under the planning and direction of Dr. Aubrey Milunsky, Director, Genetics Laboratory of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Waltham, MA, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. The registration fee, which includes two lunches, is $25 for ASLM members, and $30 for nonmembers. Further information may be obtained by contacting: The American Society of Law and Medicine, 454 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215, or Dr. Milunsky, care of the Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114.
PUBLIC HEALTH BRIEFS
409
