Background: Housing is an important social determinant of health and substandard housing is linked to physical, mental, and social health problems.
Purpose: The purpose of the study was to qualitatively assess the impacts of repairs to substandard housing in rural East Tennessee through twenty-eight interviews.
Methods: Zoom was utilized for recording phone interviews in January– February 2021 and NVivo software was used for thematic analysis in May–July 2021.
Results: Themes that emerged included environmental risk reduction, impacts on physical health, impacts on mental health, impacts on financial well-being, and willingness to receive future assistance from service organizations.
Implications: Further research is recommended to quantify impacts including effects on utilization of health care and community services, school and work attendance, and mental health impacts
