The Housing for Health program has a limited budget per project, so all works are prioritised to maximise safety and health benefits to the residents based on the critical healthy living practices. Using these priorities Healthabitat developed 11 key indicators to measure improvements in the houses that support people's ability to be safe and practice healthy living.
The 11 key indicators are:
There are around 70 household items (taps, drains, lights etc.) that must be working properly in order to meet these 11 key critical measures. Each of these 11 priority areas are made up of a combination of several household items that need to be working properly in order to support safe and healthy living. These include safe power outlets, lighting, taps, drains, hot water temperature and stoves.
The change in these 11 indicators is measured before and after each project (survey-fix 1 and survey-fix 2) and can be used to evaluate the short and long-term effectiveness of the program.
Visit HealthStats NSW - Healthy Living Practices in Aboriginal houses to see a summary of the results for projects by two-yearly periods.
Read Closing the gap: 10 Years of Housing for Health in NSW to see how improving these priority areas has contributed to improving health in NSW.