The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative – Implementing a collaborative model to address home based environmental health hazards (50m Lecture)

The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) provides an integrated approach to control or eliminate all environmental health hazards found within the home. The GHHI approach includes a single portal of intake which gives residents in communities access to a broad range of environmental health services. The GHHI model uses an original Comprehensive Assessment Tool to identify all conditions in the home impacting environmental health. The resulting Scope of Work mitigates identified hazards through coordinated delivery of health, safety and energy efficiency services. Sixteen communities nationally have adopted the GHHI approach, replacing stand-alone programs with a strategy to reduce barriers to intergovernmental coordination, align existing programs, “braid” funding streams, and coordinate home-based environmental services. Over 4,500 homes nationwide have undergone green and healthy homes

interventions. The presentation will show attendees this new model, how to incorporate multiple and innovative funding streams to address environmental health, and highlight case studies from numerous partner sites to demonstrate the effectiveness of GHHI in improving the health of residents as well as their household finances through improvements in energy efficiency, earning potential and decreased maintenance costs. GHHI's philosophy envisions the combination of Healthy Home principals and Green retrofit activities will serve as a critical set of primary prevention measures which are essential to public health practice. The GHHI platform allows for an expansion of environmental health services that serve a broad range of vulnerable populations from infants to the elderly.