[The value of housing conditions and urban environment for the health]

Housing and urban environments represent the physical context for everyday life and have a significant impact on population health and well-being. Depending on the quality of housing and urban conditions, they can support or restrict the health of their residents through a variety of aspects such as air pollution, noise, thermal conditions, safety aspects and environmental contamination. Therefore, housing and urban conditions are important dimensions for environmental health and knowledge on the main risk factors and their associated health effects is needed to identify adequate interventions and measures in the home and urban environment. This paper summarizes the results of WHO work on the health relevance of housing and urban environments and describes the health impact of the major risks observed in human settlements.