Writing a commentary in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, senior VP of innovation and impact Shauneequa Owusu recently praised County Health Rankings’ 2019 report, which focuses on the link between housing and opportunities to be healthy.
“Decades of research have shown that safe, stable, affordable housing sets the foundation for a healthy life. Conversely, housing instability is associated with poor health outcomes, particularly for children and youth,” she writes.
Owusu also calls attention to racial disparities in housing, and how those disparities precipitate inequities in health and opportunity:
“The stark differences in opportunities to live in safe, affordable homes, especially for black residents, are tied to discrimination and institutional racism from enduring, deep-rooted, and unfair systems, policies, and practices, such as the pernicious effects of redlining, which have led to consistently worse health outcomes for people with low incomes and people of color.”
Read Shauneequa’s full commentary to learn about the solutions she proposes.
March 28, 2019
Shauneequa Owusu is senior vice president of innovation & impact at ChangeLab Solutions, where she works at the intersection of community development and health.