In a nutshell
University of Houston at Sugar Land researchers will partner with Fort Bend County Health & Human Services and PolicyMap, a data and analytics company, to conduct the yearlong study, according to a UH news release.
The study is funded by a $500,000 grant from the AIM-AHEAD Consortium, an organization funded by the National Institutes of Health, awarded to UH at Sugar Land in mid-September, said associate professor Jeronimo Cortina, who is the study's principal investigator.
How it works
Housing instability can look different depending on a person’s circumstances, Cortina said. It can range from a person experiencing homelessness or using emergency housing to individuals living with relatives or transitioning between residences.
For the study, a firm will survey random Fort Bend County residents via phone calls and text messages to try to measure the continuum of housing instability, Cortina said.
“What we want to catch is as many variations as possible so we can have a clear picture of what situations affect mental health outcomes,” he said. “Because the problem that we have in current research is that most current research tends to focus, for example, on people that experience homelessness, but there’s nothing [showing data] between homelessness and, for example, owning a home.”
Additionally, PolicyMap will use its demographic and geographic data to figure out how social determinants of health—nonmedical factors that affect health outcomes—play a role in housing instability, Cortina said.
What’s next
Through the study, which will be completed in September 2025, researchers aim to produce a dashboard modeling the relationship between housing stability and social determinants of health to help county policymakers make evidence-based decisions, Cortina said.
“Once we have that better understanding in the county, then we can devise a strategy as a group ... [for] how can we devise some policy interventions that can help Fort Bend County residents who are experiencing this situation,” he said.
