He Kāinga Oranga, the University of Otago Housing and Health Research Programme, has been designated a WHO Collaborating Centre on Housing and Wellbeing.

WHO Collaborating Centres are an international collaborative network set up by WHO to support its programme at country, intercountry, regional, interregional and global levels.

Our designation includes three main areas of collaboration:

  • Measuring the burden of disease associated with poor housing conditions
  • Translating WHO Housing and health guidelines into policy
  • Supporting capacity building for healthy housing research and policy

Key activities and outcomes over the course of the collaboration include:

  • Developing our housing burden of disease methodology for use in other countries
  • Developing case studies and best practice guidelines on integration of WHO Housing and health guidelines
  • Providing design support, facilitation and technical input to a technical workshop for key regional stakeholders, on healthy housing, including burden of disease assessment and integration of guidelines.

We welcome collaboration with researchers, policy makers and the NGO sector in the areas above, or in other regional initiatives to further healthy housing research and policy.

While our primary responsibility is to the WHO Western Pacific Region, we also welcome collaboration beyond the region.

For further information, please contact:
Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard 
lucy.telfar-barnard@otago.ac.nz