Originally posted on Healio.

Eviction was associated with increased odds of poor health in children and their parents, according to a study published in Pediatrics. Co-author Dr. Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, PhD, MPH, Executive Director of Children’s HealthWatch and an assistant research professor at Boston University, told Healio that the project began with an interest in how evictions affected “very young children” in the last decade, following the Great Recession in 2008.

Says Ettinger de Cuba, “The focus on young kids really comes from the fact that children are in the sensitive period of development, with the fastest brain and body growth of their entire lifetime, and that really lays the foundation for future health and cognitive, social, emotional, and motor skills.”

According to the findings, children who were forced to move in the past 5 years were more likely to be in fair or poor health, at developmental risk, and also more likely to have been admitted to the hospital from the ED.

The researchers concluded that robust policy solutions to prevent and mitigate eviction, as well as community, health care and other supports, are needed for families that face eviction to address health impacts.