A pan-European housing and health survey: description and evaluation of methods and approaches

Xavier Bonnefoy, Matthias Braubach, Maggie Davidson, Nathalie Robbel
2007 International Journal of Environment and Pollution  
Health threats exist in all residential environments. To gain information on potential health threats and hazards in and around the home environment, the Housing and Health programme of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, conducted a pan-European survey during 2002-2003. It is intended to use the results of the analysis of the data collected for proposing to governments of the European Member States priorities and evidence on which they could base their housing strategy and policy orientations.
more » ... This paper describes and evaluates the chosen methodologies for study preparation and development. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bonnefoy, X., Braubach, M., Davidson, M. and Röbbel, N. (2007) 'A pan-European housing and health survey: description and evaluation of methods and approaches', Int. , of the WHO Regional Office for Europe. As WHO staff, he was coordinating the team in charge of the implementation of the Budapest conference declaration aspects related to housing and health in the European Region of WHO. Matthias Braubach holds a Degree in Geography (focusing on urban and environmental issues) and a Master in Public Health. He works for the WHO Regional Office for Europe (European Centre for Environment and Health, Bonn office) as a Technical Officer for Housing and Health. He works on the health relevance of the residential environment, the housing challenge for ageing societies, the health effects of housing insulation, and the development of a burden of disease assessment for inadequate housing conditions. Since July 2006, he is the head of the housing and health program. Maggie Davidson is a Principal Consultant in the Housing Centre of the Building Research Establishment in the UK. She has a Degree in Psychology and has spent the past 25 years working in housing research. She is currently responsible for designing and analysing surveys related to housing issues and for most of the analysis and policy modelling using the government's English House Condition Survey. Nathalie Röbbel is a Sociologist and has a PhD from the Friedrich Wilhelms Universität in Bonn and is specialised in family sociology. She currently works as a Technical Officer on Environment and Health Partnerships in the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Her tasks in the framework of the housing and health project were the prevention of domestic accidents, the relationship between the residential setting and physical activity/obesity, and regulations on housing and health.
doi:10.1504/ijep.2007.014816 fatcat:ctukkdpghbgl7py4ismspwq6ne