Ben Carson’s nomination as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development raised some eyebrows, and not just because Carson had recently said he wasn’t interested in running a federal agency.

The responsibilities of the job — running a federal agency whose budget in 2016 neared $50 billion and that is responsible for helping local housing authorities manage over a million households — struck some as an odd fit for his training as a neurosurgeon.

The quality of your home can also have a direct impact on your health. Dr. Megan Sandel, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center, recalled an 8-year-old girl she saw in the intensive care unit 20 years ago. The child had terrible asthma, and Sandel couldn’t figure out why — until the family told her that they recently got a cat. The child was allergic to cats, but the family bought one anyway to get rid of a mouse in the child’s bed.

“The prescription I wanted to write was for a healthy home,” Sandel said. The bad house, she said, was “was ultimately the underlying illness. Asthma was the symptom of the disease.”

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