Abstract
BACKGROUND: Assessment of the quality of housing is crucial since it is linked to both communicable and noncommunicable diseases, and housing has a number of implications for the people who live in it. OBJECTIVE: To find the association between housing quality and communicable and noncommunicable diseases. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study among the population living in the urban areas of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. All 3120 families' residents having Below Poverty Line (BPL) card/Antyodaya Yojna card in one of the zones (out of the six zones as per Lucknow Municipal Corporation), were included in the study. Hence, a total of 13742 individuals/3120 families were included in the study as study participants. The data was collected on demography, housing, and any disease among participants in the last six months. RESULTS: Majority of the participants (42.32%) were in the age group of 16-49 years. Fifty-two percent of the participants were male and 92.9% were Hindu by religion. The mean value of HQLI was found to be 14.15 with S.D. of 4.53, range 4.00-20.0. It was observed that 5.5% (751 out of 13742) of study participants had suffered from some noncommunicable disease in the last six months and 31.4% of study participants had suffered from some communicable disease in the last six months. There were statistically significant differences in disease pattern among different HQLI. CONCLUSION: There exists an association between the quality of housing and both communicable and noncommunicable diseases.