Housing and Healthy Child Development

Project Summary

The project team is testing whether assisted housing affects children's healthy development by reducing family housing cost burden, and/or by improving their housing and neighborhood conditions. A nationally representative sample of children ages 0-12 in 1997 who lived in assisted housing are followed into adulthood and their outcomes are compared to those of a comparison group of children who were eligible for but did not live in assisted housing.

Research Questions/Aims

How does assisted housing impact children’s cognitive and social-emotional development and psychological distress?

Actionability

Inform assistive and affordable housing policies.

Outcomes

Child/Youth (17 years or younger)

Cognitive Development: Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement (CDS)
- Letter-Word
- Passage Comprehension
- Applied Problems
- Broad Reading
- Combined Cognitive
Socioemotional: Behavior Problem Index (BPI)
Adjustment (Total, Internalizing, Externalizing)
Health
- Parent/self-reported health
- Chronic conditions
- Activity limitations
- ACEs
Disconnection
- Neither in school nor working

Young Adults

Health
- self-assessment of overall health
- presence of chronic conditions: asthma, diabetes, hypertension
- activity limitation
Psychological Distress (Kessler psychological distress scale)
Disconnection
- Neither in school nor working

Methodology

The researchers are using three main data sources from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (Assisted Housing Database, Child Development Supplement, and Transition to Adulthood Supplement) to simulate an experiment to create quasi-treatment and control groups of children who lived in assisted housing at some point before age 18 and comparable children who never lived in assisted housing although their families were income eligible to receive it. Instrumental variables and inverse probability of treatment weighting are used to support causal inference.