[H+T--Friends] Foreclosures and health

Column on recent study by Janet Currie of Princeton. "Losing your home to foreclosure can be bad for your health. Watching your neighbors lose their homes to foreclosure can be just as debilitating. And the cost of the additional visits to emergency rooms caused by communitywide foreclosures among those caught up in the foreclosure crisis are staggering. Health and home mortgages? Foreclosures and emergency room visits? Distressed homeowners and kidney failure? Is there really a connection? <http://ec.tynt.com/b/rf?id=bNYbpAvBir4Pxiacwqm_6l&u=TheHill>That's what I and my colleague Erdal Tekin discovered when we looked specifically at communities hit hardest by the housing crisis in four states---Arizona, California, Florida, and New Jersey---and compared them to the number of heart attacks and stroke as well as treatment for conditions related to hypertension and mental health. Writ large,our findings <http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ejcurrie/publications/Foreclosure_Health_Jan_2014.pdf>indicate that nationwide the 2.82 million foreclosures in 2009 resulted in an additional 2.21 million emergency hospital visits---an increase in hospitalizations that cost a whopping $5.6 billion in that year alone. Economists and health experts alike have documented a relationship between wealth and health, and between changes in wealth and changes in health. But the links between losing one's home or worrying about it when neighbors lose theirs and a rise in visits to hospital emergency rooms may come as a surprise to academics and homeowners. . . .. The relationship between experiencing foreclosure or living in a neighborhood with high foreclosure rates and more frequent and costly visits to the hospital should be factored into our nation's health and housing policies. Distressed homeowners need access to preventative medical care that would allow them to more safely cope with the health threats posed by foreclosure. And institutions that provide home mortgages must be closely regulated to ensure that they do not threaten the financial well being of homeowners with sudden surges in interest rates or other predatory practices. Perhaps it's time for policymakers to consider the role of home mortgages in"Health Impact Assessments " <http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/hia.htm>to improve communities' public health." Read more:http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/213835-health-we… <http://ec.tynt.com/b/rf?id=bNYbpAvBir4Pxiacwqm_6l&u=TheHill> -- Doctoral Student Institute for Multi-Level Governance and Development Department of Socioeconomics WU/Vienna University of Economics and Business Austria http://www.wu.ac.at/mlgd