Housing and Children’s Healthy Development (HCHD) Study Series

The Housing and Children's Healthy Development (HCHD) Study included four main aims:

1. to learn how parents make choices about where to live while negotiating tradeoffs between dwelling unit quality, neighborhood quality, and school quality;
2. to assess how features of the child's social contexts--home, neighborhood, and school--combine to influence key cognitive, socio-emotional, and health outcomes among parents and their children;
3. to examine how the quality of housing affects parenting practices and outcomes for children and their caregivers; and
4. to enhance the study of child development through theoretical and methodological advances in the study of housing and the other social contexts related to housing.

This collection includes data from Wave 2 of the HCHD Study. In Wave 2, telephone interviews were completed with 1,413 primary caregivers (PCGs) from the Wave 1 data collection. The PCGs also provided reports for 1,954 focal children who were still living in the household of the caregiver at the time of the Wave 2 survey. Wave 2 data collection included a coverscreen to gather updated location and contact information for the PCGs and children to determine household eligibility, and a PCG questionnaire based largely on the Wave 1 protocol with modifications for telephone interviewing.

The Housing and Children's Healthy Development (HCHD) Study included four main aims:

1. to learn how parents make choices about where to live while negotiating tradeoffs between dwelling unit quality, neighborhood quality, and school quality;
2. to assess how features of the child's social contexts--home, neighborhood, and school--combine to influence key cognitive, socio-emotional, and health outcomes among parents and their children;
3. to examine how the quality of housing affects parenting practices and outcomes for children and their caregivers; and
4. to enhance the study of child development through theoretical and methodological advances in the study of housing and the other social contexts related to housing.

For this collection, the study team conducted Wave 1 data collection with families in Cleveland, Ohio (Cuyahoga County) and Dallas, Texas, United States, using a randomized controlled trial design. One-half of the sample was an experimental sample consisting of applicants for a federal housing voucher, including both voucher winners (treatment group) and voucher losers (control group). The other half of the sample was generated through a random selection and screening process in census blocks that varied by household income weighted toward lower-income blocks.

Interviews were conducted with primary caregivers, lasting about 90 minutes, and included the collection of anthropometric measures from primary caregivers and children and administration of Woodcock-Johnson tests to children. Primary caregiver voucher sample participants were asked for three blood pressure measurements, and blood spots were collected from voucher sample primary caregivers and children. The data collection also includes laser tape measurement of all rooms in a household, 8 block face neighborhood observations, and post-interview observations. Four-day leave-behind child time diary data were collected but are not available.