| Course | HCS 457 Public and Community Health (HCS/457) |
|---|---|
| Week | 3 |
| Paper type | Social determinants analysis |
| Length | about 1,025 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | BS in Health Administration |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for HCS 457 Week 3
The Health Effects of a Lost Lease: Housing Instability and Eviction as Factors Shaping Community Health in a Mid-Sized City
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
HCS/457: Public and Community Health
Week 3 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The city, its eviction figures and its programs are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.
In February, a mother of two in a mid-sized Midwestern city fell two months behind on rent after her hours at a warehouse were cut. Her landlord filed for eviction. Within six weeks she and her children had moved in with a sister across town, the younger child had changed schools, and she had missed a follow-up appointment for her blood pressure because the clinic was now two bus transfers away. Her story is common. In the composite city described here, about 5% of renter households receive an eviction filing each year, and filings cluster in a few neighborhoods on the east side. This paper examines housing instability and eviction as factors shaping community health.
Housing Within the Social Determinants
The social determinants of health are the everyday conditions of life, where people are born, grow up, study, work and grow old. Healthy People 2030 sorts them into five domains, and housing falls under the one covering neighborhoods and the physical places people live (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, n.d.). Housing sits mainly in the neighborhood and built environment domain but touches every other one. Quality matters, since mold, pests and lead harm health, but stability matters too. A family that is forced to move repeatedly loses more than an address.
Pathway 1: Material Hardship
Desmond and Kimbro (2015), analyzing a national study of urban families, found that mothers who were evicted in the previous year experienced more material hardship than similar mothers who were not, including going without food, utilities or medical care. Eviction brings moving costs, lost belongings, court records that make the next rental harder to find and sometimes lost jobs. Money spent on a crisis move is money not spent on food or prescriptions.
Pathway 2: Mental Health
The same study found that evicted mothers were more likely to report symptoms of depression and more parenting stress, and that the effects persisted for at least two years. Eviction is not only a housing event but a stressor that follows a family into its next home, carrying consequences for mood, sleep and parenting long after the move is over. Chronic stress, in turn, is associated with high blood pressure and poorer management of chronic disease.
Pathway 3: Disruption of Care and Schooling
Moves break continuity. Families lose their regular clinic, their pharmacy and sometimes their Medicaid coverage when mail goes to an old address. Children change schools mid-year, lose school-based services and miss vaccinations. Desmond and Kimbro (2015) also found that evicted mothers rated their children's health as worse. For the mother above, the missed blood pressure visit was a small version of a pattern that affects chronic disease management across the city.
What Housing Interventions Show
If unstable, poor housing harms health, better housing should help. The Moving to Opportunity experiment tested this by randomly offering families in high-poverty public housing vouchers to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods. Nguyen et al. (2016) examined mental health effects among adolescents in the study and found that they differed by group and place: outside Chicago, girls in voucher families experienced benefits in psychological distress while boys experienced harm, and adolescents facing additional adversities such as violent crime victimization or unsafe neighborhoods fared worse. The authors concluded that some groups may need supportive services in addition to a voucher. The lesson for public health is that housing matters, but a single housing intervention does not affect everyone the same way.
Why It Is a Community Problem, Not Only a Family One
Evictions clustered in a few neighborhoods affect everyone who lives there. Schools with high student turnover lose instructional time as teachers catch up new arrivals. Churches, food pantries and emergency departments absorb the crises that follow a move. Neighbors lose the social ties that help people cope with illness and find work. When many households on the same blocks move each year, the neighborhood itself becomes less stable, and the health effects extend beyond the families who were evicted. This is why public health treats housing instability as a community condition to be measured and addressed, rather than a series of private misfortunes.
Who Is Most Affected
Eviction filings in the city fall heavily on renters in the east side neighborhoods, where incomes are lowest, and the city's court records show that households with children account for more than half of all filings. Health effects therefore concentrate in groups that already carry more illness, widening health disparities.
Empowering Communities
Marmot (2016) argued that reducing health inequalities requires empowering communities to shape the conditions of their lives, not only delivering programs to them. For housing, that means involving tenants in decisions about code enforcement, renter protections and neighborhood investment, and supporting tenant organizations and legal representation so that families facing eviction are not alone in court.
What Health Systems and Public Health Can Do
Several actions are within reach. Clinics and hospitals can screen patients for housing instability with a short set of questions and refer them to legal aid and rental assistance; a medical-legal partnership places attorneys in the clinic for exactly these cases. The health department can map eviction filings alongside health data, include housing stability in its community health assessment and advocate for local policies such as right to counsel or eviction diversion programs. Health plans can fund rental assistance for members with complex conditions. Each action addresses one of the pathways above: legal help prevents the move, rental support reduces hardship and care coordination protects continuity.
Measuring Progress
The city could track eviction filings per 1,000 renter households by neighborhood, the share of screened patients referred for housing help who keep their housing six months later, and missed appointments among patients who moved.
Conclusion
Housing instability shapes community health through hardship, stress and disrupted care, and eviction concentrates those effects in neighborhoods and families already at risk. Public health and health care organizations cannot fix the housing market alone, but they can measure the problem, connect families to help, support community voice and advocate for policies that keep people housed.
References
Desmond, M., & Kimbro, R. T. (2015). Eviction's fallout: Housing, hardship, and health. Social Forces, 94(1), 295-324. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov044
Marmot, M. G. (2016). Empowering communities. American Journal of Public Health, 106(2), 230-231. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302991
Nguyen, Q. C., Rehkopf, D. H., Schmidt, N. M., & Osypuk, T. L. (2016). Heterogeneous effects of housing vouchers on the mental health of US adolescents. American Journal of Public Health, 106(4), 755-762. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.303006
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (n.d.). Social determinants of health. Healthy People 2030. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://odphp.health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health
What the HCS 457 Week 3 instructions ask
HCS 457 Week 3 typically asks students to analyze factors that affect public and community health, most often the social determinants of health. Prompts may ask students to choose a determinant, such as housing, income, education, food access, transportation or social support, explain how it affects health outcomes in a community, and propose ways public health and health care organizations can address it. Some sections ask for a community-level example with local data or for a comparison of two communities. Expected length is around one to three pages with scholarly sources in APA format. Instructors look for a clear causal pathway from the determinant to health, evidence from research, attention to equity and realistic, specific actions.
How this HCS 457 Week 3 example is built
The paper opens with a family's eviction and the city's filing data to make the determinant concrete. It then places housing within the Healthy People 2030 domain of neighborhood and built environment and explains why housing stability, not only housing quality, matters. Three pathways from eviction to health follow: material hardship, mental health and disruption of care and schooling, each supported by Desmond and Kimbro's national study of mothers who were evicted. A section on the Moving to Opportunity voucher experiment shows that housing interventions help some groups more than others. Marmot's argument for empowering communities frames the response. The paper ends with actions for hospitals, clinics and the health department, and the measures each would track.
HCS 457 Week 3 grading rubric: where the points go
Faculty grading this assignment usually reward a clear, evidence-based explanation of how a factor affects health. Points go to identifying the determinant precisely, describing the mechanisms linking it to outcomes and supporting each with research rather than assertion. Attention to which groups are most affected, and why, earns credit under equity. Practical recommendations tied to the mechanisms described score well, especially when they name the organization responsible. Structure and APA referencing account for what is left. Papers that list many determinants with a sentence each, or that describe a problem without saying how it produces illness, usually lose points to papers that follow one determinant in depth from cause to action.
HCS 457 Week 3 help: mistakes to avoid
A common mistake in HCS 457 Week 3 is naming social determinants without explaining how they work. Show the pathway: eviction leads to hardship, stress and moves, which lead to specific health effects. Another mistake is blaming individuals, treating a determinant as a personal failing rather than a condition shaped by policy and markets. Use research, not only news stories, to support claims, and be careful not to overstate causation from observational studies. Include who is most affected, since social determinants are unevenly distributed. Recommendations should be within reach of public health or health care organizations, such as legal aid partnerships or screening, rather than vague calls to end poverty. Finally, cite a framework such as Healthy People 2030.
Related HCS 457 sample papers
Other HCS 457 week samples
- HCS 457 Week 1: Public and Community Health Basics
- HCS 457 Week 2: Measuring Health Status
- HCS 457 Week 4: Public Health and Health Care
- HCS 457 Week 5: Strategies for Health Promotion
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HCS 457 Week 3 questions, answered
What does HCS/457 Week 3 usually ask for?
Many sections ask students to analyze a factor affecting public and community health, usually a social determinant such as housing, income or education, and explain how it shapes health outcomes and what can be done.
Where can I find a free HCS 457 Week 3 sample paper?
The eviction and housing paper above is the free HCS 457 Week 3 sample, with each pathway annotated in the margin. If your determinant or community differs, the first custom paper costs nothing.
Which Healthy People 2030 domain includes housing?
Housing sits mainly in the neighborhood and built environment domain, though its effects reach economic stability, access to care and people's social ties as well.
How does eviction affect health?
Research has linked eviction to greater material hardship, higher rates of depression, worse self-reported health for mothers and children and more parenting stress, with effects lasting at least two years.
What was the Moving to Opportunity experiment?
A federal study in the 1990s that randomly offered housing vouchers to families in high-poverty public housing so they could move to lower-poverty neighborhoods, then followed their health and economic outcomes.
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