Newsletters

VI. Conclusion: Towards a Reframing Strategy #is report lays out the challenges that communicators face in shi%ing public thinking about housing generally and healthy housing in particular. Two challenges stand out as particularly important for communicators. First, consumerist thinking about housing poses arguably the most pressing and difficult challenge, as it is grounded in deep assumptions about the market that are difficult to overcome. Overcoming the trap of consumerist thinking is vital for generating a sense of collective responsibility for healthy housing and for cultivating public support for the policy solutions that experts recommend. Second, the public's lack of understanding about the connections between housing and health outcomes is a major impediment to public support for effective solutions. Finding ways to "ll out public understanding of these connections is a precondition for increasing support for needed policies and interventions. Understanding the cultural landscape—the swamp of cultural models—around healthy housing enables communicators to recognize the range of understandings that their messages are likely to activate. In turn, this allows them to adopt strategies that are more likely to bring productive ways of thinking to the forefront. #e cultural models "ndings presented in this report have clear communication implications and, in turn, generate a set of recommendations about how to better frame housing and healthy housing issues. While further empirical prescriptive research is needed to identify effective frames and communications strategies, the research presented here points clearly to a set of recommendations: Initial Recommendations "A House, a Tent, a Box": Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understanding of Healthy Housing 33 Don'ts: 1. Avoid using the term "housing" without providing more information about the speci#c aspects of housing issues that are being discussed. #e term on its own is likely to bring up associations with assisted housing and to trigger negative models of government and dependency. Communicators should not assume that the public's basic de"nition or understanding of this term mirrors that of experts. 2. Avoid language or images that cue the Consumerism model. When this model is cued, housing disparities are viewed as natural Dos: 1. Find ways of cuing the Where You Live Affects You model. #is is perhaps the most productive model that emerged from this research. If communicators can activate this model, people will be receptive to messages about the ways in which changes to housing conditions can prevent problems and promote positive health. Results from additional research that was designed to explore effective ways of cuing this model are described below. 2. Leverage people's thinking about the openness of children to explain the importance of environments for people of

• Cover