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Participant: People "nd excuses not to work, and so they can't afford better housing. — Participant: For example, this guy—you would say "let's go work" and he says "no, I'm too tired today. I'm too tired. I just want to stay home and smoke some cigarettes or something like that." Key Implications of Models of Health Effects • !e Open Children model should be expanded. #e model is promising in its recognition of people's susceptibility to their environment. Research is needed to understand how the sensitivity that people attribute to children can be expanded to create a more general and less age-speci"c recognition of the ways in which housing affects health. • !e Contaminant cultural model is helpful but also limiting. While the model provides a basis for explaining how contaminants harm health, the focus on visible trash and physical chemicals diverts attention from non-visible aspects of housing that affect health and makes it harder to recognize the importance of these aspects. It remains to be seen whether communicators can use the contaminant model to help people draw connections between environments and health and then expand this line of thinking to include factors that are not immediately visible or directly physical in nature. • !e Stress Affects Health model can be built upon. #e model provides a productive basis for explaining now factors such as affordability and the built environment affect health outcomes. To take full advantage of the model, communicators should "ll in the blanks in people's understanding by spelling out the mechanisms by which stress affects people's health. • !e Do No Harm model obscures the role of housing in promoting health. #e model's exclusive emphasis on harm leaves little room for thinking about the positive contributions that housing could make for health promotion. #is makes a good part of the expert story difficult to communicate and shows the need for framing tools that can explain the ways in which housing can contribute to positive health and well-being. • !e Mentalism model occludes structural factors and undermines people's ability to consider systemic solutions. #e model is deeply unproductive. By putting all responsibility for poor housing and even homelessness on the individuals themselves, the Mentalism model leaves no room for public policy. Communicators must avoid cuing this model, because once activated, it will make the public unreceptive to systemic solutions. "A House, a Tent, a Box": Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understanding of Healthy Housing 25

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