"Home: A Shelter from storms": Assessing the effect of quality of housing on physical health status among low-income urban areas of Lucknow district.

BACKGROUND

Assessment of the quality of housing is crucial since it is linked to both communicable and noncommunicable diseases, and housing has a number of implications for the people who live in it.

OBJECTIVE

To find the association between housing quality and communicable and noncommunicable diseases.

METHODS

A community-based cross-sectional study among the population living in the urban areas of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. All 3120 families' residents having Below Poverty Line (BPL) card/Antyodaya Yojna card in one of the zones (out of the six zones as per Lucknow Municipal Corporation), were included in the study. Hence, a total of 13742 individuals/3120 families were included in the study as study participants. The data was collected on demography, housing, and any disease among participants in the last six months.

RESULTS

Majority of the participants (42.32%) were in the age group of 16-49 years. Fifty-two percent of the participants were male and 92.9% were Hindu by religion. The mean value of HQLI was found to be 14.15 with S.D. of 4.53, range 4.00-20.0. It was observed that 5.5% (751 out of 13742) of study participants had suffered from some noncommunicable disease in the last six months and 31.4% of study participants had suffered from some communicable disease in the last six months. There were statistically significant differences in disease pattern among different HQLI.

CONCLUSION

There exists an association between the quality of housing and both communicable and noncommunicable diseases.