Background
Household overcrowding is a growing problem in England. Overcrowded housing is often coupled with poor housing quality. Combined with other adverse housing circumstances, it contributes to a range of health outcomes such as poor mental health and increased risk of infectious diseases and injuries. It is also associated with poorer educational outcomes. It is also a particular priority for some local councils in England, including Islington.
For councils to alleviate the health effects of overcrowding, they need to know about effectiveness of strategies to reduce household overcrowding on health and wellbeing. The last major systematic review into the effects of housing improvement interventions on health was conducted ten years ago. While some promising outcomes were identified, most of the interventions concerned with overcrowding focused on re-housing residents, thus leaving questions unaddressed about what can be done when this strategy is not possible, due to lack of lack of suitably large properties locally and/or residents’ inability/unwillingness to move elsewhere.
Aim
Conduct a rapid realist review of peer-reviewed and grey literature to identify possible interventions that could be implemented in local government contexts to mitigate the harmful effects of household overcrowding in families.
Methods
In this review, we followed a Rapid Realist Review process. A realist review uses the literature to form explanations of how interventions might work, for whom and in what circumstances. Expert and stakeholder engagement are commonly part of realist reviews. In this review, we recruited two expert panels: 1) decision makers - local and regional government staff, and 2) people with lived experience of overcrowding and their representatives.
Publications