The intersection of health and housing: Analysis of the research portfolios of the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

BACKGROUND: Housing is a major social determinant of health that affects health status and outcomes across the lifespan. OBJECTIVES: An interagency portfolio analysis assessed the level of funding invested in "health and housing research" from fiscal years (FY) 2016-2020 across the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to characterize the existing health and housing portfolio and identify potential areas for additional research and collaboration. METHODS/RESULTS: We identified NIH, HUD, and CDC research projects that were relevant to both health and housing and characterized them by housing theme, health topic, population, and study design. We organized the assessment of the individual housing themes by four overarching housing-to-health pathways. From FY 2016-2020, NIH, HUD, and CDC funded 565 health and housing projects combined. The Neighborhood pathway was most common, followed by studies of the Safety and Quality pathway. Studies of the Affordability and Stability pathways were least common. Health topics such as substance use, mental health, and cardiovascular disease were most often studied. Most studies were observational (66%); only a little over one fourth (27%) were intervention studies. DISCUSSION: This review of the research grant portfolios of three major federal funders of health and housing research in the United States describes the diversity and substantial investment in research at the intersection between housing and health. Analysis of the combined portfolio points to gaps in studies on causal pathways linking housing to health outcomes. The findings highlight the need for research to better understand the causal pathways from housing to health and prevention intervention research, including rigorous evaluation of housing interventions and policies to improve health and well-being.

Measuring Human-Animal Attachment in a Large U.S. Survey: Two Brief Measures for Children and Their Primary Caregivers.

Researchers in the human-animal interaction (HAI) field face a challenge in generalizing the impact of pet ownership and companion animal interaction from small samples to larger populations. While researchers in Europe and Australia have included measures of pet ownership and attachment in surveys for some time (e.g., the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), survey researchers in the United States have been slow to incorporate questions related to HAI in population representative studies. One reason for this may be that many of the current HAI-related measures involve long, complex scales. From the survey administration perspective, using complex scales is costly in terms of both time and money. The development and validation of brief measures of HAI will facilitate the inclusion of these measures in larger surveys. This paper describes the psychometric properties of two brief attachment measures used in the first population-representative study of child development in the United States that includes HAI items, the 2014 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Child Development Supplement (CDS). We use two measures derived from the 29 item CENSHARE Pet Attachment Survey, one for children aged 8-17 (6-items) and one for the primary caregiver (3 items). The results suggest that such brief measures of attachment to pets are psychometrically valid and are a practical method of measuring HAI attachment in larger surveys using only a few survey items. We encourage HAI researchers to work with other ongoing surveys to incorporate these and comparable HAI measures.

Human-animal interaction as a social determinant of health: descriptive findings from the health and retirement study.

BACKGROUND: We focused on human-animal interaction (HAI) as an important aspect of social functioning at the individual level, framing this emerging field from a public health perspective. METHODS: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) 2012 HAI module, we describe the characteristics of pet ownership in a population of older adults, and examine the relation between pet ownership and multiple mental and physical health indicators such as health status, depression, and physical activity. RESULTS: Of the 1657 participants in our subsample, approximately half (51.5%) reported being pet owners; the majority owned dogs or cats, and most had only one pet. Pet ownership was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of ever having had depression, with pet owners being 1.89 times more likely to have experienced depression. However, pet ownership was not associated with having experienced depression within the last week. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study could indicate a relationship between pet ownership and depression, but it is impossible to determine the directionality of that relationship. It is possible that owning a pet may put a person at an increased risk of developing depression, or individuals who are at risk, or who have already developed depression, may acquire a pet as a way of managing their depressive symptoms. The findings of this study provide an initial step in contributing to our understanding of the relationship between companion animals and the social, physical, and mental well-being of the HRS study population. Future research should include measures of HAI in longitudinal, population-based surveys.

Modeling US adult obesity trends: a system dynamics model for estimating energy imbalance gap.

OBJECTIVES: We present a system dynamics model that quantifies the energy imbalance gap responsible for the US adult obesity epidemic among gender and racial subpopulations. METHODS: We divided the adult population into gender-race/ethnicity subpopulations and body mass index (BMI) classes. We defined transition rates between classes as a function of metabolic dynamics of individuals within each class. We estimated energy intake in each BMI class within the past 4 decades as a multiplication of the equilibrium energy intake of individuals in that class. Through calibration, we estimated the energy gap multiplier for each gender-race-BMI group by matching simulated BMI distributions for each subpopulation against national data with maximum likelihood estimation. RESULTS: No subpopulation showed a negative or zero energy gap, suggesting that the obesity epidemic continues to worsen, albeit at a slower rate. In the past decade the epidemic has slowed for non-Hispanic Whites, is starting to slow for non-Hispanic Blacks, but continues to accelerate among Mexican Americans. CONCLUSIONS: The differential energy balance gap across subpopulations and over time suggests that interventions should be tailored to subpopulations' needs.

The racial crossover in family complexity in the United States.

This article examines the evolution of the black extended family by documenting a black-white crossover in the proportions of unmarried adults living in complex households after the middle of the twentieth century. We demonstrate significant racial differences in the trends in complex house-hold residence over the life course, characterized by far greater declines in complex living among whites, particularly at younger ages. In this context, the higher level of family extension that recent research has found typifies black families is both a relatively new phenomenon and one that is not just limited to single-parent families; it characterizes all ages, those with and without children, and men as well as women.

Childhood residential stability and health at midlife.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the association between 2 dimensions of adults' self-rated health and residential stability in childhood. METHODS: Using data from the nationally representative survey Midlife in the United States, I assessed the impact of neighborhood and family stability on positive perceptions of global health and mental health in midlife. RESULTS: Neighborhood stability in childhood is associated with a significant increase in the likelihood that an individual will rate his or her global health highly in midlife. Both neighborhood and family stability are positively associated with good mental health in midlife. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that both childhood family stability and adult social context are associated with health outcomes later in life.