Poor housing conditions harm children’s school attendance and grades

Children living in substandard housing in England miss 15 more school days and achieve worse test scores in English and maths than their peers living in better quality housing, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Improving their living conditions-specifically reducing overcrowding and damp, and upgrading heating systems-may not only benefit their health, but also their grades,conclude the researchers.

One in 7 families in England live in homes that fail to meet the official decent homes standard, point out the researchers. Housing is a key determinant of child health, yet relatively little is known about how its quality may affect educational outcomes, particularly the number of missed school days and exam grades, they add.

To explore this further, the researchers drew on data for 8992 children, born between 2000 and 2002 participating in the nationally representative Millennium Cohort Study.

Housing quality at the age of 7 was calculated from 6 key indicators: accommodation type; floor level; lack of access to a garden; presence of damp; inadequate/no heating; and overcrowding.

Housing quality was linked to the percentage of missed school days and standardised test results in maths and English at the ages of 7, 11, and 16 in the National Pupil Database.

On average, children missed 5% (86 days) of compulsory schooling (years 1–11). And approximately 16% of them lived in poor quality housing, defined as meeting at least 2 of the 6 indicators.

After accounting for potentially influential factors, including parental educational attainment and ethnicity, analysis of the data showed that children living in poor quality housing missed more school days and achieved worse grades than children living in better quality housing.

These children missed nearly 1.5 more school days, on average, for each of the 11 years of compulsory schooling than their peers living in higher quality housing (based on 7272 children). Damp, overcrowding, and living in a flat were most strongly associated with missed schooling.

Test scores in maths and English during primary and secondary school were between 0.07 and 0.13 points (2-5%) lower for children living in poorer quality housing (based on 6741 children), mainly driven by overcrowding, and to a lesser extent, lack of central heating.

This is an observational study, and as such, no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, added to which data on school absences or test results on at least one data collection point were missing for 10% of the participants.

Children exclusively in home schooling and attending private schools (7%) aren't captured in the National Pupils Database. And housing conditions were subjectively assessed by parents rather than being objectively measured.

Nevertheless there are plausible explanations for the observed associations, suggest the researchers, with living in damp housing increasing the risk of respiratory illness.

"While study participants were not asked directly about the presence of mould, damp conditions are a major determinant of fungal growth which can in turn release hazardous spores, fragments, and microbial volatile organic compounds into indoor air," they explain.

Overcrowding also creates an unfavourable environment for study, they add. "Crowded housing is linked to behavioural problems and to worse health in children…Living in crowded homes is linked to lower academic achievement due to noise, lack of study space, insufficient sleep, reduced concentration and added responsibilities (eg, childcare)."

They conclude: "Improving housing conditions, especially reducing damp and overcrowding, and updating heating systems and energy efficiency can have significant benefits.

"Given the magnitude of the problem in England, national and local public health and housing policies targeting these features of housing quality could improve children's health and school outcomes across the country and narrow the health inequality gaps."

The NHS could also save the £1.4 (€1.6, US$1.8) billion every year it spends on treatment associated with the effects of poor housing, they add.