Housing, Neighborhoods, and Children's Health
Housing, Neighborhoods, and Children's Health
复制标题
DOI：
10.1353/foc.2015.0006
复制
发表时间：
2015-03-01
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Glied, Sherry
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ellen, Ingrid Gould;Glied, Sherry
从理论上讲，改善低收入家庭的住房和社区也可以通过许多机制改善他们孩子的健康。例如，减少接触环境毒素可以预防哮喘等疾病;一个更安全、更少暴力的社区可以通过减少受伤和死亡的机会以及减轻压力来改善健康;一个更适合步行的社区和更好的游乐场可以鼓励孩子们锻炼，使他们不太可能变得肥胖。然而，尽管社区改善政策通常能实现其直接目标--对游乐场的投资创造了游乐场，例如，英格丽德·古尔德·埃伦和雪莉·格利德发现，许多这些政策对贫困儿童的健康没有明显的影响。一个问题是，社区的改善可能会使低收入家庭失去已经改善的社区，因为新的便利设施吸引了更多的富裕家庭，导致租金和房价上涨。埃伦和格利德说，政策制定者应该仔细考虑社区改善可能会如何影响负担能力，这种考虑可能会有利于那些对低收入儿童有明显和实质性好处的政策，比如那些减少社区暴力的政策。住房补贴可以帮助家庭科普不断上涨的成本，或者搬到更富裕的社区。不幸的是，帮助家庭搬到更好的社区的示范项目对儿童的健康影响有限，可能是因为这种过渡可能会带来压力。由于补贴发放给相对较少的低收入家庭，补贴的存在本身可能会推高住房成本，给大多数没有得到补贴的家庭带来额外负担。Ellen和Glied建议政策制定者考虑向更多家庭提供较小的补贴是否是使用这些资金的更有效方式。
In theory, improving low-income families' housing and neighborhoods could also improve their children's health, through any number of mechanisms. For example, less exposure to environmental toxins could prevent diseases such as asthma; a safer, less violent neighborhood could improve health by reducing the chances of injury and death, and by easing the burden of stress; and a more walkable neighborhood with better playgrounds could encourage children to exercise, making them less likely to become obese.Yet although neighborhood improvement policies generally achieve their immediate goals- investments in playgrounds create playgrounds, for example-Ingrid Gould Ellen and Sherry Glied find that many of these policies don't show a strong effect on poor children's health. One problem is that neighborhood improvements may price low-income families out of the very neighborhoods that have been improved, as new amenities draw more affluent families, causing rents and home prices to rise. Policy makers, say Ellen and Glied, should carefully consider how neighborhood improvements may affect affordability, a calculus that is likely to favor policies with clear and substantial benefits for low-income children, such as those that reduce neighborhood violence.Housing subsidies can help families either cope with rising costs or move to more affluent neighborhoods. Unfortunately, demonstration programs that help families move to better neighborhoods have had only limited effects on children's health, possibly because such transitions can be stressful. And because subsidies go to relatively few low-income families, the presence of subsidies may itself drive up housing costs, placing an extra burden on the majority of families that don't receive them. Ellen and Glied suggest that policy makers consider whether granting smaller subsidies to more families would be a more effective way to use these funds.