Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Extreme weather and social conditions create many challenges that affect the conditions of homes and the health of their inhabitants. First Nations housing has been characterized as "substandard", "Third World", "inadequate", "unsuitable", "overcrowded", "mouldy", "unhealthy", "in need of major repairs", "of poor quality", and more. The demand for engineered solutions for northern housing is of high priority. The objectives of the proposed community-based research project are to: (a) develop a protocol for assessing First Nations housing; (b) use this protocol to develop a Best Practice Process for First Nations housing renewal; and (c) develop a Healthy Housing Index (HHI) which will serve as a tool to measure the link between housing conditions and health, using both medical and building sciences. The proposed research project fills a serious gap in the evaluation tools available in assessing the housing conditions as determinants of health of First Nations people. The interdisciplinary research is designed to draw from the expertise of professionals from engineering, medicine and education that will lead to knowledge and technologies useful in improving the health of First Nations Canadians. The proposed Protocol and the Best Practice Process will ensure uniformity in the renewal process, allow only qualified personnel to carry out renewal projects, guarantee the quality of the work, result in quantifiable levels of success, prevent "patch work" by non-qualified contractors, and lead to the development of appropriate design and construction guidelines for sustainable healthy housing for First Nations communities. Home remediation can be incorporated as part of an overall intervention strategy in the treatment and control of respiratory and other associated medical problems. The HHI will allow healthcare officials to evaluate health outcomes with reference to housing conditions, help community leaders more effectively address housing conditions in their community to improve the health of its residents, assist provincial/federal housing and health authorities to identify areas in which housing rehabilitation programs can yield the greatest gains in residents' health.