Pitt’s New Healthy Home Lab Will Help Students Find Solutions for Aging in Place

From the outside, the three-story house sitting at 257 Oakland Ave. looks like any other Pittsburgh home. But inside, University of Pittsburgh students will soon be working to find solutions to problems older people often face when trying to stay in their homes rather than moving into nursing homes, known as “aging in place.”

The house is Pitt’s new Healthy Home Lab, which will aim to support aging in place by designing and developing assistive and smart home technology.

The 105-year-old home that the university purchased in April was an ideal amalgamation of problems real-life homeowners in the city are experiencing.

The house had asbestos and lead issues, one of the chimneys was unsafe, there were structural problems that needed to be addressed, some of the electricity needed rewiring and – as is the case in many Pittsburgh homes – the basement was damp.

Some homebuyers might have taken one look at that list of flaws and run in the other direction. But the challenges made it a dream house for the university.

In the lab, students will try to come up with ways to make home environments healthier for people, especially seniors and people with disabilities, who “want to remain in their homes and live independently as long as possible,” said Everette James, the director of the Pitt Health Policy Institute.

A number of years ago, but particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic set in, researchers began really focusing on home environments as an aspect of health, according to James.

“We’ve always known that the home and where people live in their home environment is a very important aspect of their health,” he said. “And the importance of the home as the center of health has really accelerated the last couple of years.”

Read the full article on the Pittsburgh Post Gazette