Evaluation of an Australian indigenous housing programme: community level impact on crowding, infrastructure function and hygiene

Ross Stewart Bailie · Matthew Stevens · Steven L Guthridge · David Brewster

42 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Epidemiology & Community Health

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights Child Nutrition and Water Access Urban and Rural Development Challenges

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Housing programmes in indigenous Australian communities have focused largely on achieving good standards of infrastructure function. The impact of this approach was assessed on three potentially important housing-related influences on child health at the community level: (1) crowding, (2) the functional state of the house infrastructure and (3) the hygienic condition of the houses. METHODS: A before-and-after study, including house infrastructure surveys and structured interviews with the main householder, was conducted in all homes of young children in 10 remote Australian indigenous communities. RESULTS: Compared with baseline, follow-up surveys showed (1) a small non-significant decrease in the mean number of people per bedroom in the house on the night before the survey (3.4, 95% CI 3.1 to 3.6 at baseline vs 3.2, 95% CI 2.9 to 3.4 at follow-up; natural logarithm transformed t test, t=1.3, p=0.102); (2) a marginally significant overall improvement in infrastructure function scores (Kruskal-Wallis test, χ(2)=3.9, p=0.047); and (3) no clear overall improvement in hygiene (Kruskal-Wallis test, χ(2)=0.3, p=0.605). CONCLUSION: Housing programmes of this scale that focus on the provision of infrastructure alone appear unlikely to lead to more hygienic general living environments, at least in this study context. A broader ecological approach to housing programmes delivered in these communities is needed if potential health benefits are to be maximised. This ecological approach would require a balanced programme of improving access to health hardware, hygiene promotion and creating a broader enabling environment in communities.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 42 citations exist upstream.

References

2002Housing and Health: Time Again for Public Health Action 2004Housing and Public Health 2011Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision 2007Dirt, disgust and disease: a natural history of hygiene 2006Housing and health in Indigenous communities: Key issues for housing and health improvement in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities 2009Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework 2008 report: detailed analyses 1993Housing, stress, and physical well-being: Evidence from Thailand 2012Settlement: a History of Australian Indigenous Housing

Cited by

2014Review of early childhood parenting, education and health intervention programs for Indigenous children and families in Australia 2013A Review of Programs That Targeted Environmental Determinants of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health 2019Housing conditions and health in Indigenous Australian communities: current status and recent trends 2022Aboriginal social housing in remote Australia: crowded, unrepaired and raising the risk of infectious diseases

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.