Home Is Where the Health Is
From left: Joey Engelmeier, Jemima Ohwobete
This 105-year-old home (at left) may not look like it at first glance, but it is a living laboratory—the Healthy Home Laboratory. Here, researchers from across Pitt and the community are designing and testing real-world evidence-based solutions to support community living among aging adults, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.
The lab is a collective undertaking, a gathering place for health care and technology experts. At any given moment, experts in the lab are designers, craftspeople, engineers; or clinicians from the Health Policy Institute; Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Public Health, School of Nursing, School of Medicine, and Swanson School of Engineering; as well as community organizations like Community Aging in Place Advancing Better Living for Elders, Women for a Healthy Environment, and the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging.
Recognized as a testbed site by AARP’s AgeTech Collaborative, the lab received an almost $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop assessment tools and interventions to make homes safer for vulnerable populations and a $5 million grant from the Administration for Community Living to develop and test smart home interventions.
The researchers leading the effort are Everette James, M. Allen Pond Professor of Health Policy and Management; Jonathan Pearlman, associate professor and chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology; Pam Toto, professor of occupational therapy; and Steven Handler, associate professor of geriatrics.
