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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce the proportion of families that spend more than 30 percent of income on housing — SDOH‑04 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  American Housing Survey (AHS), HUD & Census

Baseline: 34.6 percent of families spent more than 30 percent of income on housing in 2017

Target: 25.5 percent

Numerator
Number of households whose monthly housing cost was 30 percent or more of current income.
Denominator
Number of occupied housing units.
Target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
Target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.20.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available for this objective. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.2. This method was used because it represents a meaningful improvement from baseline. Spending more than 30 percent of income on housing is considered housing burdened and contributes to poor health outcomes.

Methodology

Methodology notes

Monthly total housing costs as percent of household income. The yearly housing costs (monthly housing costs multiplied by 12) are expressed as a percentage of the total household income. Household income is defined as the sum of the income of all people 16 years and older living in the household. This type of income is collected for every household member. The percentage was computed separately for each unit and rounded to the nearest percent, so 25 to 29 percent means to 29.49 percent. The percentage was not computed for units where occupants reported no income, a net loss, or no cash rent. The category 100 percent or more counts units with housing costs exceeding income. This situation may mean inaccurate income or housing costs data, or true but temporary situations. For most purposes, readers may wish to treat this line as missing or unreliable data.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective is similar to Healthy People 2020 objective SDOH-4.1.1 but starting in 2015 the data is obtained from tabulated summary tables on census.gov. In Healthy People 2020 the data was tabulated by NCHS using public use files.

1. Effect size h=0.2 was chosen to correspond with 20% improvement from a baseline of 50%.