Hopkins Housing & Health Collaborative
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The Hopkins Housing and Health Collaborative—working in conjunction with communities, policymakers, and practitioners—seeks to identify ways healthy housing can be used as a platform to support health and well-being across the life course.
Interdisciplinary. The Collaborative brings together a wide range of researchers from across Johns Hopkins University, including faculty from the School of Nursing, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and School of Medicine. Pediatricians, geriatricians, internal medicine physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, epidemiologists, and health services researchers partner with individuals involved in housing development, advocacy, government, and health care systems to advance rigorous research and provide creative solutions in the face of growing housing challenges.
Across the life course, across dimensions of housing. Investigators involved in the Collaborative work on a wide range of projects from research that investigates how housing policies impact children’s healthy eating to programs designed to improve daily activities for older adults. Projects span multiple different aspects of housing, including its quality, affordability, and neighborhood context.
Training future leaders. Collaborative members are committed to bringing together trainees with diverse interests in housing and its connection to health. Monthly meetings help introduce trainees to potential mentors and offer a supportive environment to share ideas and interests.
The Hopkins Housing and Health Collaborative was founded by Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean of the School of Nursing, and Craig Pollack, MD, MHS, Katey Ayers Professor in the School of Nursing and Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Pollack currently directs the initiative. Rhonda Smith Wright, PhD candidate in the School of Nursing, is the Collaborative fellow.
Our People
Faculty Leads
Craig Pollack, MD, MHS
Dr. Pollack is the Katey Ayers Endowed Professor with primary appointments in the School of Nursing, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is an internal, primary care physician whose research focuses on how housing, and its neighborhood context, impact health and health care use. He previously worked at the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S Department of Housing & Urban Development on a part-time basis.
Collaborative Coordinator
Rhonda Smith Wright
Faculty
Thomas K. M. Cudjoe, MD, MPH
Dr. Cudjoe is the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric and Gerontology. He is board certified in internal medicine & geriatric medicine and is actively engaged in the medical care of older adults in the community who are homebound via the Johns Hopkins Home-based Medicine Program. His research focuses on the intersection of social connections, aging, and housing.
Laken Roberts Lavigne, PhD, MPH
Dr. Roberts Lavigne is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research interests focus on urban housing and neighborhood environments and investigating the mechanisms linking these contextual characteristics to health across the lifespan. She previously worked as a data manager of the Community Aging in Place – Advancing Better Living for Elders (CAPABLE) studies and is currently a study coordinator and data analyst for the Mobility Asthma Project.
Sabriya Linton, PhD
Dr. Linton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Broadly, Dr.Linton’s research uses mixed methods and multi-method designs to evaluate the impacts of social and structural factors on substance use and related sequelae, including HIV and overdose. She has particular interest in evaluating the impacts of housing policies, community development and gentrification on behavioral health in Baltimore and nationwide, and incorporating participatory approaches in her research and community organizing in her practice.
Safiyyah Okoye PhD, RN, FNP-C
Okoye is an assistant professor at Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions in the Department of Graduate Nursing. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Health Management and Policy, Dornsife School of Public Health. She studies how socioeconomic position influences older adult physical function via built and social environments, including housing.
Eliana Perrin, MD, MPH
Dr. Perrin is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Primary Care in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing. She is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars trained research pediatrician who studies obesity prevention in children at high risk for obesity including Black and Latinx children who have food and housing insecurity and who come from neighborhoods that have been systematically disadvantaged.
Laura Samuel, PhD, MSN, RN
Dr. Samuel is a nurse practitioner-turned-researcher who investigates income-based health disparities. Her research examines the pathways that link low income and financial strain to physiologic aging. This includes research investigating the health impact of policies and programs related to economic well-being for low-income households, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. She has also built a body of evidence demonstrating that financial strain contributes to aging-related health disparities. In this research, she has found that housing conditions such as disorder in the home partly account for socioeconomic disparities in functional limitations for older adults.
Rebecca Seltzer, MD, MHS
Dr. Seltzer is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the Division of General Pediatrics with joint faculty appointments at the Berman Institute of Bioethics and Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a general pediatrician at the Harriet Lane Clinic. Her research focuses on improving care and quality of life for children with medical complexity and their families, with a particular interest in identifying and addressing the unique challenges they face in regard to housing adequacy and stability.
Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, RN, FAAN
Dr. Szanton is the Dean and Patricia M.Davidson Health Equity and Social Justice Endowed Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Her main research strands are improving health equity among older adults, aging in community, the effects of financial strain on health, and structural racial discrimination and resilience.
Collaborators
Camille Anoll-Hunter
Camille joined CLPHA in April 2021 as the Health Policy Manager. Her work focuses on the Housing Is Initiative, supporting housing authorities and creating innovative community solutions to address societal inequities and the social determinants of health. Camille comes to CLPHA from the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center where she examined the interaction between housing, community resources, and health inequities. She also brings experience from the public health and wellness fields. Camille graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in human biology—an interdisciplinary combination of biology, public health, and bioethics. She also holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Social Work, both from the University of Michigan.
Veronica Eva Helms Garrison
Garrison is a researcher with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development & Research, Office of Research, Evaluation and Monitoring. At HUD, Veronica leads in-house research initiatives focussed on housing as a social determinant of health, substandard housing, and data linkage. In addition to her role at HUD, she is a part-time Doctor of Public Health candidate in the health equity and social justice concentration and a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Kate Leifheit
Dr. Leifheit is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She is a social epidemiologist who studies housing insecurity as a core determinant of health for children, families, and communities. Through her research, Dr. Leifheit aims to inform the design of housing policies that promote health and health equity.
Trainees
Aaron Cadore
Cadore is a Housing and Homeless Services Program Manager with Placer County in Northern California. Cadore administers local, state, and federal funds that innovatively blend housing, homeless, and behavioral health services to help local residents reach their full housing potential. Also, Cadore is a part-time Doctor of Public Health student in the Health Policy and Management concentration at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior, Cadore received his Master of Social Welfare and Bachelor of Arts in English degrees from University of California, Berkeley.
Ashley Meehan
Meehan is a PhD student in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She works at the intersection of public health and homelessness, specifically on improving homeless mortality data, assessing the health impacts of displacing people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, and strengthening the capacity of public health agencies to support the health of people experiencing homelessness. She received her Master of Public Health degree in Global Health with a joint certificate in Religion and Health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Candler School of Theology, and a Bachelor of Applied Health Science from Bowling Green State University.
Justin Rose
Rose is a PhD student in the Department of Health Policy & Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research explores how housing environment influence community health and safety, with a focus on injury and violence prevention. He received a bachelor’s degree in sociology and French from North Carolina State University and a master’s degree in urban planning from the Harvard Graduate School of design.