Housing, public health and community care: A proposal to improve the well-being of older people

The establishment of community care principles should have led to increased provision of independence-enhancing housing services to older people, but the trend has been in the opposite direction. A research project considered the place of housing in public health and community care planning and the potential of primary health care workers to supply information. The article identifies obstacles to change and proposes an approach which would ensure that information on housing needs was routinely collected and fed into planning processes.