User talk:Djadonis206/sandbox

Lovisa's comments

Hey, great work on this article! I found it highly interesting and well deserving of the Wikipedia spotlight. I do however have some (oops, became quite a few) thoughts and suggestions, most of which have more to do with restructuring/format than content (the latter is great). Hopefully some of it can be helpful to you and give your article (even more) weight in the Wiki-sphere.

To begin with, a summary introduction would be helpful. If I was casually clicking my way through Wikipedia (cause that´s how it works, right?) and found myself on “(Poor) Housing quality and health outcomes” I would want to quickly get an idea of what this topic is about and what´s more to it. (I know that this is a new article that stands on its own, but it might be worth thinking about what related topics could have brought the reader here, maybe that can give you an idea of what should be highlighted first).

In such as section, I would recommend not using specific references (unless a quick and general “…for example asthma and injuries” only to facilitate understanding to the unversed reader – does not need to be an exhaustive list here) or statistics (it´s enough to state that “a lot” suffer from something, or it is a “common” problem – interested readers can dig into precisely how much (of a problem) it is further down in your article).

My thought is that you want to give something to the reader who just browses through the overview and then clicks away, at the same time as you want to invite readers that can be persuaded to read on by serving them a morsel.

Introduction:

• I like the introduction you have now and don´t have any problems with that still being there even if you add a brief summary in the beginning.
• Write HUD in parenthesis after the full name as you use the abbreviation later (under Causative Agents).

Definitions:

• I agree with previous comment and encourage you to move this section earlier, it is great for helping the reader orientate itself and understand the frames for the topic you´re addressing. The definitions section is more general and later section get more specific and in depth so it makes sense to have them switch place.
• Write out FHA in full the first time, wiki-link if possible. I agree with previous comments that it is redundant to specifically credit Schwartz (just deleting “According to Schwartz” would still adhere to Wiki-norms for citation).

History:

• Under this heading the wiki-user expect to find an overview of how (poor) housing has led to specific health outcomes, e.g. how building of sewers improved health. Maybe this section could be called something like Spatial patterns instead (and the History section left to someone with a more specific historic housing-health interest to edit later on)? Or it could be a good idea to pin it down to “History of building quality”/”Causes of poor housing quality” (bad heading suggestions but maybe you get the point), or even name it Background instead?
• Think about that under your current topic heading also improvement in housing quality and its (positive) impact on health could be covered (i.e. if you´re only interested in highlighting the negative consequences you might want to clarify that this section has to do with those, alternatively narrow the topic heading down).
• In the first paragraph you might want to state that problems with housing quality is worse in the inner city and/or that the poor housing and neighborhood conditions you refer to here are the inner city’s. E.g. “disinvestment (…) has led to particularly poor conditions in the inner city.”

Statistics: This section is very interesting, but I think you should state when the numbers are from. I also feel that it relates to the History section as they both over housing conditions. Maybe they could even have a common heading with sub-sections, e.g. “Housing conditions” (keep History 1st paragraph as introduction and possibly add Statistics 1st paragraph right under it, then:) a) Geographic/spatial variation (a1: causes for spatial variation), b) Racial variation [c) Variation by tenure]. (Schwartz is quoted both with footnotes and parenthesis)

Specific health outcomes:

• I´m not sure the medical expenses etc. belongs under Asthma in this context, since poor housing quality isn´t the only cause for asthma and hence not the only driver of that cost. One option could be to move it to the policy section: “Health outcomes caused or worsened by poor housing conditions is a problem to the individual but also to society. For example, asthma costs this and this. Improving housing quality could help decrease those costs.”
• Wiki-link to Food Security.

Causative agents: This section could possibly come before Specific health outcomes to connect more directly to the housing issues described earlier.

Interventions/policy:

• Again, the heading indicates that you will describe the interventions that have been made in the past or the current intervention (e.g. changes in building codes). Maybe “Policy formulation” is better?
• The Wiki-link Public Health Policy redirects to Health Care System, a page that has a “Goals” section. If you link to this you have some background/support for your recommendations section (given the statistics you´ve stated above), then you might formulate it like “specific considerations related to housing & health policy formulation”.
• Wiki-link Fair Housing.

Sorry about the massive amount of comments – it´s only because I got too interested and carried away, and not at all to be taken as critique. Again, great work and I am looking forward to see (and link to!) the ready result. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lhogberg (talk • contribs) 07:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Oops again, forgot to sign in case you want me to clarify any of the thoughts or comments Lhogberg (talk) 09:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Kelly's Comments

Hi guys. I'm really glad that you're taking on this topic. And I like that you identify some specific issues like asthma and lead paint. It seems like you've really focused on quality in the U.S., which makes sense given that we've really focused on U.S. housing issues in class, but perhaps then you should title it that way or try to accommodate some international comparisons of quality issues? (I know this is an issue I have for the Housing Trust Fund page too.) A comparison of what constitutes "quality" housing and health issues in other countries would be a really interesting page, but I think it's probably too much to tackle for this class.

I also think it would be great to hear more about the improvement of housing quality over time. The "History" sections starts with the statement that housing quality is better today, but I didn't really get a grasp of the comparison between before and now. FDR's quote about wanting "decent" housing for everyone and the fact that many houses previously lacked toilets or running water may be important for showing the trend over time. I imagine some pictures might help demonstrate the difference if you can find any.

Lastly, I'm wondering whether the Policy piece as it's currently framed fits on a Wikipedia page. It reads somewhat like a recommendation, which is great for a policy analysis, but it seems Wikipedia wants to avoid that type of commentary and just stick to facts. Perhaps if you frame it more as the impact policy interventions have had, then it could be documented? Or maybe you could just focus your discussion strictly on others' proposals and not make it sound like you agree with them?

I hope some of these ideas help. This process makes me have a lot more trust in Wikipedia as a source if all pages are as thoroughly screened as ours have been! Good luck! Krider07 (talk) 05:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Instructor Comments

This page is coming along nicely. The article is broken down into easily digestible chunks of text. I really like that you offer a history and some definitions. I am quite impressed that you've attempted to talk about a series of specific health problems, causative agents, and solutions. This is a comprehensive plan for the page. I think you should post this for feedback sooner rather than later.

Some confusion for me, though, was talking about moderate housing problems in the history before you have defined what they are. You might think about putting the definition before the history?

I am also wondering about some of the style of the text. Right now it is written in good academic form (eg: Schwartz says...).If you look at the highlighted entries, they make a statement and put in the citation. Basically, they tell a story or present the idea in a user friendly manner, but not an academic manner.

In the solutions, I think rather than saying what they "should" be make clear prescriptions based on the research. you can be a bit stronger in these recommendations.Rachel Garshick Kleit (talk) 06:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)