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Vacant Buildings - Background: Health

How do vacant buildings impact our health?

Not only are vacant buildings fire hazards, but they often contain lead, asbestos, and other environmental hazards that can cause major health concerns. In addition, according to the St. Louis Health Department, vacant lots lead to sanitation and insect problems. There is also a public health risk because unkept lots and buildings attract snakes, rats, and other rodents.

A group of researchers from Louisiana State Medical Center in New Orleans has also published a study to indicate where the highest levels of gonorrhea occur.

They took into account that, although people with gonorrhea tended to be poor, in some poor neighborhoods the rate was very low. They borrowed a concept called the "broken window index" which determined among other things that neighborhoods with the highest broken window index had the highest rate of gonorrhea (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 25, 2001 -- "Broken Windows and Lives") The St. Louis Health Department suggests that this report would hold up for St. Louis, and for diseases other than gonorrhea as well.