By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, May 18, 2026 (HealthDay News) \u2014 A New York City mold removal program cut asthma-related ER visits by a quarter among residents of public housing, a new study says.<\/p>\n
The city created \u201cMold Busters\u201d in 2019 in response to a class-action lawsuit filed by residents suffering from asthma due to mold in their apartments, researchers said.<\/p>\n
The program led to a 25% decrease in asthma-related emergency department visits, researchers reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society<\/a> (ATS).<\/p>\n \u201cThese results suggest that housing interventions on asthma triggers could play a critical role in reducing long-standing asthma disparities,\u201d lead researcher Nina Flores<\/a> said in a news release. Flores is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work.<\/p>\n The Mold Busters program improved the city\u2019s response to reports of mold in public housing and trained staff in evidence-based ways to best remove it, researchers said.<\/p>\n For the new study, researchers compared asthma ER visits among public housing residents served by the Mold Busters program with a control group of people living in nearby areas with similar income levels.<\/p>\n People served by Mold Busters averaged nine fewer asthma-related ER visits per 1,000 people compared to residents in similar non-public housing areas, results showed.<\/p>\n Overall, that translated to nearly 2,800 fewer ER visits between 2021 to 2023, compared to the 2016-to-2018 period prior to Mold Busters\u2019 implementation, researchers said.<\/p>\n Flores noted that the buildings with the largest drops in mold complaints also saw the steepest declines in asthma-related ER visits \u2013 a sign that Mold Busters could indeed improve residents\u2019 health.<\/p>\n The program\u2019s impact likely was even better than captured here, Flores said, since researchers didn\u2019t track less-severe asthma or allergy problems that might cause someone to miss work or school without needing to go to the ER.<\/p>\n \u201cThe health benefits reported here likely underestimate the full scope of health-related benefits from the intervention,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The ATS\u2019 meeting took place in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on mold and health<\/a>.<\/p>\n SOURCE: American Thoracic Society, news release, May 17, 2026<\/p>\n