ABSTRACT
Despite the widespread belief that housing affects health, scientific research over the past two decades has failed to demonstrate this relationship convincingly (Kasl, 1974; Kirmeyer, 1978; Cohen, Glass and Phillips, 1979; Loring, 1979). The research has generally been of two kinds: ecological studies investigating the relationship between measures of population density in geographically defined areas and indirect indicators of health status (e.g. hospital admissions) (Galle, Gove and McPherson, 1972; Levy and Herzog, 1974; Collette and Webb, 1977), and studies relating individuals’ housing circumstances to measures of ill-health (Taylor and Chave, 1964; Moore, 1974, 1976; Booth and Cowell, 1976; Booth and Edwards, 1976).
