The major legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is attempting to overhaul the health care system in the United States. Health educators need to understand how this health care policy will impact the profession. Forecasted with change, this study’s goal was to provide preliminary insights into the perceived impact of the Affordable Care Act and changes that could occur within the health education profession as a result of this major health care reform legislation. Seven knowledgeable, experienced, and well-respected leaders of the health education profession participated in this qualitative research study. Semi-structured, exploratory interviews were conducted with six participants and one participant provided written responses to the interview protocol questions. After each interview, a thematic analysis was conducted on the participants’ responses. Five themes emerged from the interviews: (1) a fragmented sick-care system, (2) ACA becomes law: the participants’ reactions, (3) ACA becomes law: the profession’s reactions, (4) impact on the profession, and (5) health education in 2020. The changes the Affordable Care Act is attempting to make to the health care system are no secret. There is potential for health educators to do something they have never been able to do before because of the Affordable Care Act, but action must be taken by these professionals. The positive elements of this legislation need to be protected, strengthened and verified, and further action needs to be taken to assure all critical components for creating a truly reformed health care system are incorporated into future legislation. Future research focused on investigating the impact the Affordable Care Act has on the health education profession should be conducted on a regular basis. As more mandates within the law are enacted over time, the impact on the profession, more than likely, will shift. It is also recommended future research seek to quantify the impact the legislation has on the profession.

This research report assesses the affordability of private residential developments in Addis Ababa and delineates factors that contribute to their affordability. Literatures related to concepts of housing affordability; household income levels; housing prices and mortgage financing, etc are reviewed. The research studies examined revealed that the combination of high population and high urban growth rates coupled with a high prevalence of urban poverty have placed massive strain on Ethiopian cites. Accordingly, the critical urban issue is: lack of healthy, affordable housing for all sectors of the urban population. This is especially true in Addis Ababa as it has a share of 23% of the country’s urban population. In Addis Ababa, there is strong housing demand as supply lags behind demand; conditions of existing houses worsen and the population is increasing. To date, the government housing program has only managed to build only about half of the demanded units. It has, therefore, became increasingly imperative that the government should concentrate on reforming and managing the policy and legal framework in such a way as to create an environment for the private sector to provide housing.

There is a growing recognition in the built environment for the significance of benchmarking. It is recognized as a key driver for measuring success criteria in the built environment sector. In spite of the huge application of this technique to the sector and other sectors, very little is known of it in affordable housing sub-sector and where it has been used, components of housing quality were not holistically considered. This study considers this identified deficiency in developing a benchmark for assessing affordable housing quality impact factors. As part of this study, samples of 4 affordable Housing projects were examined. Two each were originally selected from under 5 categories of ‘operational quality standards’ within United Kingdom. Samples of 10 projects were extracted from a total of 80 identified UK affordable housing projects. Investigative study was conducted on these projects showing varying impact factors and constituent parameters responsible for their quality. Identified impact criteria found on these projects were mapped against a unifying set standard and weighted with ‘relative importance index’. Adopting quality function deployment (QFD) technique, a quality matrix was developed from these quality standards groupings with their impact factors. An affordable housing quality benchmark and a relative toolkit evolved from resultant quality matrix of project case studies and questionnaire served on practitioners’ performance. Whereas the toolkit was empirically tested for reliability and construct validity, the benchmark was subjected to refinement with the use of project case study.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine if Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an effective means for encouraging stakeholder collaboration throughout the building design/construction process and improving upon affordable and sustainable strategies for infill housing development. The research methodology includes literature reviews, interviews, case studies, simulations, and experimentations. Literature reviews include documentation regarding BIM, housing affordability and policy, sustainable design strategies, and integrated design practice. I conducted interviews with local stakeholders who had participated in local affordable/sustainable housing projects. The primary case study was the Alley Flat Initiative (2003-2010) which I had the opportunity to be involved with in various capacities as a participant observer. Simulations were performed using a BIM software tool to ‘redesign’ the first Alley Flat Initiative prototype and compare design workflows. Finally, experimentation was done involving the instruction of BIM software and exploring its use within an academic design studio environment. The findings indicate four significant conclusions. First, the research suggests that inflated soft project costs (overhead, administration, and services) can be reduced if local city governments were to adopt BIM in conjunction with housing review and permitting processes. In addition, the city could use BIM data to quantify building impacts on energy and resources over time. Second, sustainability innovation can be easier to integrate within a BIM workflow due to the high-capacity of the software to exchange information with third-part analysis tools. One particular barrier that must be overcome, however, are financial barriers due to software and staff training costs associated with BIM technology. Third, BIM requires ‘front-loading’ projects with more information earlier in the design process, which encourages greater transparency and more direct collaboration between stakeholders. A fully leveraged BIM workflow may not be feasible beyond local small-scale architects and builders due to the relatively steep learning curve and higher software costs, but a hybrid approach might be possible depending on how residential construction practices and BIM software development evolves in the near future. And fourth, BIM can make project information centralized, accessible, and long-lasting – serving as a communication and learning tool across disciplines and between expert and non-expert participants. The product of this research includes recommendations for all stakeholder groups engaged in leveraging BIM for affordable and sustainable housing development. Additional related topics of inquiry which fell outside the scope of this research are also included for future investigation. / text

This research report assesses the affordability of private residential developments in Addis Ababa and delineates factors that contribute to their affordability. Literatures related to concepts of housing affordability; household income levels; housing prices and mortgage financing, etc are reviewed. The research studies examined revealed that the combination of high population and high urban growth rates coupled with a high prevalence of urban poverty have placed massive strain on Ethiopian cites. Accordingly, the critical urban issue is: lack of healthy, affordable housing for all sectors of the urban population. This is especially true in Addis Ababa as it has a share of 23% of the country’s urban population. In Addis Ababa, there is strong housing demand as supply lags behind demand; conditions of existing houses worsen and the population is increasing. To date, the government housing program has only managed to build only about half of the demanded units. It has, therefore, became increasingly imperative that the government should concentrate on reforming and managing the policy and legal framework in such a way as to create an environment for the private sector to provide housing.

For my thesis, I have chosen to adapt the abandoned office/warehouse at 1207 North Boulevard for use as a community workshop for all of Richmond's urban neighborhoods. The community workshop's focus will be to provide open workshops, classes, a resource library and design consultation to low and middle income homeowners, affordable housing properties, and community parks. In addition, the center welcomes all of Richmond city residents to join and partake in 1207's resources in order to grow a multi-faceted community focused on improving the lives of all of Richmond City's residents. The center will function as a gathering space for all urban residents and will promote both the individual and the community through a ‘Do It Yourself' approach to home design and care that will instill pride and self reliance to all members of the community.

This thesis examines the Louisiana legislature's justifications for supporting inclusionary zoning to address the shortage in affordable housing since hurricane Katrina and compares the model ordinance, passed in 2007, to ordinances in San Francisco, Denver, and San Diego. These large city ordinances offer an assessment of older versus newer ordinances as well as strict versus lenient provisions within a mandatory ordinance. This thesis acknowledges the model ordinance is strong and accepts its recommendation to convene a housing task force to study implementation in New Orleans. In order to maximize the benefits of inclusionary zoning this task force should be convened quickly to undertake local housing market research to determine the right set-aside, threshold, and incentives to create a strong mandatory ordinance. This group must also focus on implementing key model ordinance provisions like setting aside units for very low-, low- and moderate-income households within each development and determining the ideal density bonus.

Thesis advisor: Marvin Kraus / Thesis advisor: Matt Rutledge / The state of Massachusetts implemented a health care reform in 2006 that induced a number of changes to its health care system. Studies regarding this reform bear a certain degree of predictive power on the national scale because the reform was used as a model for the Affordable Care Act, the highly controversial national health care reform law passed in 2010. Most of the research on health care reform focuses on the costs, not the quality, of health care. I utilized a difference-in-differences statistical design to isolate the impact of the Massachusetts reform on the state's asthma mortality rate, a health care quality indicator. Given certain assumptions, my empirical results indicate that the reform led to a 45.38% reduction in asthma mortality in Massachusetts. Due to the similarity between the Massachusetts and the national health care reform laws, I drew the conclusion that national asthma mortality rates will decrease after 2014 when certain key provisions of the national reform come into play. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

Este trabalho verifica os aspectos positivos e negativos existentes na gestão pósocupação de cinco edifícios reabilitados para Habitação de Interesse Social (HIS) em São Paulo com mais de dois anos uso. Os prédios selecionados pertencem ao Programa de Arrendamento Residencial (PAR) da Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF) em convênio com a Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo (PMSP) e suas unidades habitacionais são arrendadas a famílias com renda mensal entre três e seis salários mínimos. Na pesquisa são levantadas as dificuldades existentes neste período relacionadas aos aspectos sociais e econômicos dos moradores, assim como aos aspectos físicos e arquitetônicos do edifício. A metodologia utilizada inclui levantamento bibliográfico, entrevistas com os agentes responsáveis pela execução do programa habitacional e com os moradores dos edifícios. Após análise dos principais fatos que caracterizam a gestão pós-ocupação dos prédios, são apontadas as possíveis razões para as dificuldades encontradas na gestão. Destaca-se a falta de um trabalho social contínuo que monitore as relações sociais existentes no condomínio e que garanta a permanência da população no programa. Como resultado final do estudo são elencadas algumas alternativas para buscar a minimização dos problemas. / This work verifies the positive and negative aspects that exist in the post-occupancy management of five buildings that have been renovated for use as affordable housing in São Paulo, and have been in use for more than two years. The selected buildings are part of the Programa de Arrendamento Residencial (PAR) (Residential Rental Program) of the Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF) savings bank, in partnership with the São Paulo City Hall (PMSP), and the residential units are rented to families with a monthly income of three to six minimum salaries. The research investigates the difficulties that exist in this period, in relation to the residents social and economic aspects, as well as the physical and architectural aspects of the building. The methodology used includes a bibliographic review, interviews with the agents responsible for carrying out the residential program, and residents of the buildings. After analyzing the main facts which characterize the post-occupancy management of the buildings, possible reasons for the difficulties experienced in the management are indicated. The need is highlighted, for a continual social work, to monitor the existing social relations in the building and ensure that the population stays in the program. As the final result of the study, some alternatives are listed aimed at minimizing the problems.

While the lack of affordable housing is a problem across the United States, the situation is particularly dire in Miami-Dade County, FL. As of 2017, 49% of all households in Miami-Dade County were housing cost-burdened (defined as paying more than 30% of household income on housing). Now ranked as the fifth least affordable housing market in the nation, the trend is worsening and negatively impacting workforce retention, wealth creation, and economic mobility (Greiner, 2017). / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection