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A decade of research on housing and health: a systematic literature review

  • Sara Alidoust EMAIL logo and Wei Huang

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic review of the evidence linking housing and health. This involved a review of 59 peer-reviewed journal papers, that included case studies on the health impacts of housing and were published in English, in the past decade (2010–2020). Our systematic review of the literature suggested most of the research on the health impacts of housing employed quantitative methodology, were conducted in the Global North and were published in Medical and Health Sciences journals. Research findings demonstrated four key areas through which housing impacts health: neighbourhood or context, physical building, housing market and housing policy. This paper provides valuable information to researchers for future research directions on the associations between housing and health and to decision-makers and planners for planning healthy cities.


Corresponding author: Dr. Sara Alidoust, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, QLD, Australia, E-mail:

Funding source: The University of Queensland, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

  1. Research funding: The research was funded by The University of Queensland, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The funding organization played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.

  2. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  5. Ethical approval: Not applicable.

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Received: 2021-09-07
Accepted: 2021-10-26
Published Online: 2021-11-08
Published in Print: 2023-03-28

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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