On the House: Pediatrician stresses link between health, having stable housing
A few years ago, Dr. Megan Sandel treated a child at Boston Medical Center’s Grow Clinic, where Sandel is associate director.
The child was 2 years old but the size of a 1-year-old.
“We tried everything — PediaSure, medications, scopes,” Sandel said. “Nothing worked.”
The case was worrisome because, as Sandel noted, “if you’re not growing your body during that critical time period, you’re not growing your brain.”
Suddenly, miraculously, the child began to grow. Sandel’s team could find only one reason for the transformation: The child’s mother had received a housing voucher that allowed her to move off a relative’s couch into a home.
Sandel shares the story to illustrate the importance of housing on health, a connection she has devoted much of her career to exploring and helping solve.
“There is no greater predictor of health than where you live,” said Sandel, who on April 10 will bring her message to Columbus as the opening speaker at the Housing Ohio 2017 conference.
