Advancing a healthy housing policy agenda: how do policy makers problematise housing-related health issues?

Abstract

A substantial international body of evidence links housing to health outcomes. In 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) evaluated a small selection of policies from its six geographic regions and found that, in Australia as in the rest of the world, existing healthy housing measures fall short of the systemic response required to address health impacts and inequities. This paper takes the novel step of applying Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What is the Problem Represented to Be?’ approach to a wide-ranging thematic analysis of over 300 Australian policies across the domains of health and housing and related policy areas. In so doing, it offers an overview of existing healthy housing policy as well as illuminating the conceptual understandings and priorities of policy makers, shedding light on the policy paradigms that see housing under-utilised as a preventive health and health equity measure.