The CHD typically receives between 2,300 to 4,000 housing complaint calls annually related to mold, pests and leaking plumbing. To start the HHA program, departmental sanitarians began introducing the program by educating the complainants. Initially, many complainants felt hesitant to allow a HHA. With the passage of time, several sanitarians reported over 50% success rate of HHA. However, the departmental rate of HHA acceptance remained at 37% by the end of the second quarter.Next, a mentor group was formed to develop training and educational materials for both the staff and the citizens (complainants) to increase the participation in HHA and resolving common housing issues. The mentor group was comprised of those sanitarians that had greater than 50% acceptance of the HHA. With this refined approach, the overall acceptance of HHA by the public rose to 55%.
The HHA provided information on the various populations that were served and the environmental and safety hazards noted. The household income for a majority of the residences where a HHA was conducted was less than $22,000/year and 50% of the households had someone with a health concern e.g., asthma, allergies COPD etc. Sanitarians overall observed environmental and safety hazards 2.3 times more than the citizens reported in their initial call. In the Healthy Homes program there are seven principals, in three of those areas the ratio for hazards observed by a sanitarian to reported concerns was 8.7 to 1 for keep it clean, keep it pest free it was 1.6 to 1 and keep it dry was 2 to 1. The pilot HHA program data lends support to the efficacy of the program in eliminating the environmental and safety issues, resulting in an improved quality of life and safety of our citizens.
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