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Articles in Housing affordability can result in overcrowded living conditions.

  • A study in Sao Paolo, Brazil found that for every average increase of one additional dweller per bedroom in a household there was a 14% increase in tuberculosis mortality.

    Antunes JL, Waldman EA. The impact of AIDS, immigration and housing overcrowding on tuberculosis death in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1994-1998. Soc Sci Med. 2001;52(7);1071-1080.

  • Overcrowding leads to an increased risk of ear infection in children.

    Bhatia R, Guzman C. The case for housing impacts assessment: the human health and social impacts of inadequate housing and their consideration in CEQA policy and practice. San Francisco, CA: Department of Public Health; 2004.

  • Children in low-income families exposed to one or more environmental risks - for example, overcrowding or noise - showed increases in urinary cortisol and epinephrine, which are biomarkers of chronic stress.

    Evans GW, Marcynyszyn LA. Environmental justice, cumulative environmental risk, and health among low-and middle-income children in upstate New York. Am J Public Health. 2004;94(11):1942-1944.

  • Overcrowding leads to poor sanitation, increased noise, and residential fires.

    Cooper M. Housing affordability: a children's issue. Discussion Paper No. F-11. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Policy Research Networks; 2001. Available at: http://www.cprn.com/en/doc.cfm?doc=176. Accessed July 1, 2009.

  • Of all owner and renter occupied households in California that are overcrowded, more than half are severely overcrowded.

    California Department of Housing and Community Development. Housing policy development: overpayment and overcrowding. Available at: http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/housing_element2/EHN_Overpayment.php. Accessed July 1, 2009.

  • The Department of Housing and Urban Development has found that “relative to other urban areas, central cities tend to have a higher concentration of renters, lower income households, and foreign-born populations which are more likely to live in overcrowded homes."

    Blake KS, Kellerson RL, Simic A. Measuring overcrowding in housing. Bethesda, MD: US Department of Housing and Urban Development; 2007. Available at: http://www.huduser.org/Publications/pdf/Measuring_Overcrowding_in_Hsg.pdf. Accessed July 1, 2009.

  • Overcrowding and poor-quality housing also have a direct relationship to poor mental health, developmental delay, heart disease, and even short stature.

    Bashir SA. Home is where the harm is: inadequate housing as a public health crisis. Am J Public Health. 2002; 92(5):733-738.

  • Overcrowding is linked to increased mortality rates, meningitis, tuberculosis, respiratory infections, poorer self-rated health, and increased stress.

    Krieger J, Higgins D. Housing and health: time again for public health action. Am J Public Health. 2002;92(5): 758-768.
    Graham NM. The epidemiology of acute respiratory infections in children and adults: a global perspective. Epidemiol Rev. 1990;12:149-178.

  • Crowded housing conditions contribute to poor child development and school performance, in part, because overcrowding limits the space and quiet necessary for children to do homework.

    Jackson A, Roberts P. Physical housing conditions and the well-being of children. Background paper. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Council on Social Development; 2001. Available at: http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2001/pcc2001/housing.htm. Accessed June 8, 2009.
    Cooper M. Housing affordability: a children's issue. Discussion Paper No. F-11. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Policy Research Networks; 2001. Available at: http://www.cprn.com/en/doc.cfm?doc=176. Accessed July 1, 2009.