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V. Mapping the Gaps and Overlaps in Understanding #e goals of this analysis have been to: (1) document the way experts talk about and explain housing and healthy housing in the United States; (2) establish the ways that the American public understands these same issues; and (3) compare and "map" these explanations and understandings to reveal the gaps and overlaps between the perspectives of these two groups. We now turn to this third task. Overlaps FrameWorks researchers identi"ed a small set of overlaps between the ways that the general public and experts understand housing generally and healthy housing in particular. While these overlaps suggest areas to leverage in future reframing efforts, communicators should keep in mind that beneath these overlaps there are o%en deeper gaps. Reframing strategies must "nd ways to draw on productive areas of overlap while attending to the danger of inadvertently reinforcing underlying gaps. 1. Where you live affects you. Both experts and members of the public consider housing to be an issue of vital importance and recognize the role of place in shaping well-being. #is recognition, however, is quite recessive for members of the public. While the public's thinking about housing location is dominated by the Consumerism model, the public also recognizes at times that people's lives are shaped—at least to a degree—by the places where they live. 2. Stress is a health issue. Both experts and members of the public understand the potentially negative effects of stress on health outcomes. Experts emphasize the wide variety of causal mechanisms that link housing-related stress to poor health outcomes, whereas members of the public focus on the high cost of housing as the way in which stress can affect health. 3. Government has some responsibility. Although the public largely attributes responsibility for housing to individuals and views government as inept or corrupt, at times members of the public, like experts, view government as responsible for, and capable of, improving housing to better promote health and well-being. While this positive understanding of government's role was dominant for experts, for the public it was recessive and applied narrowly to government regulation of rental properties. 4. Housing is segregated. Experts and members of the public both recognize that neighborhoods remain segregated by class and race. Beneath this overlap lies a deep gap regarding the causes of this recognized segregation. While experts point to the role of policies such as redlining in contributing to racial and economic residential segregation, members of the public view this phenomenon as a natural feature of the consumer market and attributed it to people's preference to live with those "like" them. 30

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