The Center for Economic Information (CEI) at UMKC has received a three-year, one-million-dollar grant from Housing and Urban Development for the proposal Pediatric Health and the Built Environment (PHBE). This grant brings together researchers and staff from the UMKC Hospital Hill and Volker Campuses and extends partnerships with Children's Mercy Kansas City (CMKC) and the Kansas City Missouri Department of Health (KCDOH). PHBE has the potential to inform the design of personalized treatments for chronic pediatric illness. It also has public policy applications, such as quantifying the effects of policy prescriptions and aiding in cost-effectiveness analysis. PHBE is comprised of two aims, both focused on quantifying the nexus of housing and health.
Our first aim makes extensive use of the CEI’s Neighborhood Housing Condition Survey (NHCS), a rapid, non-invasive, and inexpensive evaluation method for surveying infrastructure, grounds, and exterior housing conditions at the parcel level. Aim 1 begins by estimating associations between the NHCS exterior conditions and the CMKC Housing and Health Intervention Program’s observations of interior housing conditions. Aim 1 continues with an in-depth examination of connections between the NHCS exterior conditions and the CMKC Housing and Health Protocol data archive, a location-specific record of pediatric asthma, poisoning, and injury. We expect to see strong correlations, which would support the use of NCHS as an initial screening tool to identify “hot spots”—focus areas for environmental and health interventions.
The second aim of the PHBE initiative focuses on the KCDOH Lead-Safe Housing Interventions. These Lead-Safe interventions are a HUD-sponsored remediation program for the removal or remediation of lead hazards. Our grant will quantify the effect of these interventions on other pediatric health outcomes unrelated to lead poisoning. We expect to see that some of the helpful side effects of lead removal, such as weatherization, will reduce healthcare costs above and beyond the reductions directly associated with lead poisoning.
Neal Wilson, Associate Director of the CEI, is the Principal Investigator for this grant. Matthew Robinson, also of the CEI, is the Project Manager. From UMKC Biomedical Health Informatics Stephen Simon is the Statistical Director, Suman Sahil will lead in the design of the data environment, and Ricardo Moniz will provide administrative support. The grant will also employ the labor of two graduate research assistants.