Developing an Environmental Hazards Assessment Module for Home and Community Based Services

Current home health assessment and care planning tools used to deliver home and community-based services (HCBS) such as home modifications, therapy, and personal assistance care, often fail to address environmental health and hazards. At the University of Pittsburgh’s Healthy Home Lab (HHL), we are actively developing an environmental hazards assessment module designed to be integrated into existing Medicaid HCBS assessments. In this workshop we will present an overview of the HHL research and showcase our ongoing progress in creating the innovative, usable assessment tool we are developing with Healthy Home Technical Studies (HHTS) grant funding. We will present outcomes of our assessment tool and policy scan, which examines the acknowledgement of physical environmental hazards in HCBS assessments and current reimbursement pathways for addressing indoor air quality and mold related issues. We will present on the performance of consumer-grade indoor air quality monitors that measure common air pollutants, e.g. PM2.5, total VOC, CO2, and Radon, and their potential inclusion as an HCBS assessment module. Lastly, we will discuss efforts toward creating a predictive model for the environmental relative moldiness index(ERMI) using factors that are easier to obtain through inquiry, visual observation, and low-cost sensor measurement.