Checklist healthy housing for tenants and home owners

Problem Statement Housing and health are interconnected. By measuring the health performance of housing, risks can be identified and measures to improve the health potential can be taken. A Checklist Ventilation Quality, published by the National Tenant Organization, has been a successful ¿action¿ promoting tool in The Netherlands. The tool gives insight in the technical quality of ventilation services and also in the quality of use. The tool improves the communication about ventilation, in relation to moisture, smell and mould problems. A spin-off is the development of the Checklist Healthy Housing, with a much broader focus than ventilation. What are the requirements of a tool that can be used both by tenants and home owners or housing institutions? How can this tool support better communication about health risks of housing and how can it promote remediation? Objective The objective of the study is to determine in what situations and how a Checklist Healthy Housing can identify health risks and promote better communication about health related technical features and occupant behavior. Method Performance evaluation requires the selection of a limited set of simple and robust performance indicators. These indicators must support both tenants and landlords to come up with the same results. To study health performance indicators, field data were collected in 325 dwellings. The indicators are selected by developing and validating models on high concentration and high exposure to house dust mite, mould, noise, nuisance and drinking water contamination. Results The Checklist Healthy Housing has been developed, ready for use in pilots. The checklist includes a protocol to inspect the house and the user patterns of the occupants on the basis of a set of indicators. The inspection does not require expert testing or measurements. The two important moments to use the tool is when people move out and into a different house or when complaining about maintenance and indoor environment. Conclusion The study of the relation between occupancy patterns, building features and health risk in dwellings resulted in a set of robust indicators that support a relatively simple diagnosis of health risk in housing. Because both occupant behavior and technical aspects are included, the tool has a potential to improve the communication between tenants and landlords about healthy housing.