Housing as a Social Determinant of Health

Running head: HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATE 1
Housing as a Social Determinant of Health
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HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATE 2
Introduction
The social determinants of health (SDH) are the particular factors both economic and
social that determines the health status within a particular region or a community in a certain
environment and with a certain group of people or population. The SDH factors either promote
or erode the health status in the living conditions of the specific population. These determinants
of health involve the living standards in which a person is born, grows and the additional forces
and systems that are involved in building regular bases of life conditions. SDH is the important,
unprecedented global that impacts the natural human environment and with significant
implications for human health. This essay will analyze and discuss housing a social determinant
of health affecting the families under the poverty level in the United State (US). The family gives
an individual enough support through various ways like the ideal family environment, effective
parenting skills and socioeconomic status. The essay will demonstrate the impact of housing on
low-income families in the United States. There are ways to address the issue of housing on poor
families in the US as it affects the health status of such populations. The essay will analyze and
discuss how the issue of housing affects the health status the ways to improve the condition
among the affected population.
Description of Americans living under the poverty level
The United State of America is considered the richest country in the world, but there are
millions of its residents who live in a low level of the poverty line. In a research conducted by a
certain organization, it estimated that 13,5% of people of the United States which is around 42.1
million lives under the poverty line. Other scholars underscored that the population in the United
state living under poor living standards were approximately 100 million which is almost a third

HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATE 3
of the population of the United States of America. The US poverty rate in the year 2017 was
12.3% which had improved from 12.7% in 2016 the poverty level in the US had fallen by 2.5%
points since 2014 where it was 14.8% to the 12.3% in 2017 (Federal Interagency Forum on
Child, & Family Studies (US) (Eds.), 2017). This is the poverty rate decline within three
consecutive years. Most of the population in the US living under the poverty line are face by the
issue of housing problems.
Poor housing problems are associated with several other poverty factors. These factors
facing the poor people in the US include; ignorance, dishonesty, dependency and disease apathy.
All these factors contribute to other secondary problems such as poor infrastructures,
unemployment, inadequate capital, bad governance, lack of markets and lack of skills (Moffitt,
2015). The government ignorance due to poor leadership causes negligence of the people living
in poor backgrounds such that there is an unequal distribution of resource. Poor infrastructure is
also supposed to be developed by the government, but due to poor leadership, thus it leads to the
unequal distribution of resources such as healthcare facilities and good housing. In 2009, there
were around 643,000 unsheltered and sheltered homeless population in the US (Goodin, & Le
Grand, 2018).
A third of these people stayed in transitional house programs or on the emergency
shelters; the other others lived on the streets in the abandoned buildings with the unfavourable
condition for human beings. In 2018, there was an increase in the number of citizens of the
United States who chose to reside on their vehicles because they could not afford rental houses
due to the rental increase. The families under the poverty line in the US in concentrated on the
resident who resides on the rundown housing in large urban centres where some industries have
been pushed away. Most poor families, transitional residents and the large population of a

HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATE 4
homeless population migrate and settle there, establishing a slum-like a village. Since these
vulnerable populations settle in those places with no plan or any regulation from the government,
the settlement is clustered everywhere such that there is no space for the construction of better
roads, proper insulation or ventilation by the government. The true picture of poverty is found in
the rural regions of south and southwest areas in the United States. These areas have no
industries or may have ever run down and moved away. Some of the States where poverty is
very high in the United States in the southern region includes; West Virginia (17%), Georgia
(16%), Mississippi (20.8%), Kentucky (18%) and Alabama (17.1%). In the southwest region of
the US, they include; Arizona (16.4%), Oklahoma (16.3%) and New Mexico (19%) (Proctor,
Semega, & Kollar, 2016). This problem was mostly experienced in the cities where the
urbanization and overcrowding increased the cost of living. Some of the cities that were
influenced include; Oregon, San Francisco and in Portland. These areas have a history of poor
family backgrounds and them vulnerable to be affected by the Housing Issues as a social
determinant of health (Garbarino, 2017).
How Housing Affects the Poor Families in the United States
An individual’s health and social development are dependent on available health services
and healthy living standards. The families living under the poverty level in the United States of
America have affected the housing Issue negatively as they experience many challenges in the
areas they live due to poor housing conditions. Lack of proper housing or good sheltering
conditions may lead to major health inequalities and may result to a burden of diseases from the
environment in which someone was born, brought up, works or worked and where one is living
(Hagenaars, 2017).