About

Andrew Fenelon, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. He is a demographer and population health scientist whose research focuses on the social and policy determinants of health. His work specifically examines how housing policy can improve health and well-being and reduce inequalities across the life course. Fenelon's research explores the relationships between public housing, housing choice voucher programs, and various health outcomes including physical and mental health, environmental risk exposures, neighborhood attainment, dementia, and diabetes control. He also considers how these programs might reduce racial/ethnic and economic disparities. His expertise encompasses population health, housing policy, neighborhoods, health disparities, race/ethnicity, nativity & immigration, aging & the life course, geographic differences, eviction, causal inference, linked data, and social policy. Fenelon holds a PhD in Sociology and Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Demography from the same institution, and a BA in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research has been supported by various grants, including those from NIH, HUD, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and he has published extensively on topics related to housing assistance and health outcomes.

Research topics

• Gerontology
• Medicine
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Business
• Economic growth
• Social psychology
• Demographic economics
• Family medicine
• Psychiatry
• Environmental health
• Economics
• Developmental psychology
• Nursing
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• Pathways Connecting Housing Assistance to Child Well-Being in Families Experiencing Homelessness

  Journal of Urban Health · 2026-01-20

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Housing as a Determinant of Health: A Population-Level Approach

  American Journal of Public Health · 2025-04-09

  editorialOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do Rental Assistance Programs Relieve Overcrowding for Children?

  Journal of Urban Health · 2025-05-15 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Housing insecurity pathways to physiological and epigenetic manifestations of health among aging adults: a conceptual model

  Frontiers in Public Health · 2025-01-23 · 11 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Introduction: Housing insecurity is a social determinant of health, as evidenced by its associations with mental, physical, and biological outcomes. The scientific understanding of the mechanisms by which housing insecurity is associated with health is still limited. This review adapts existing stress process models to propose a conceptual model illustrating potential pathways linking the specific stressor of housing insecurity to physiological and epigenetic manifestations of stress among aging adults. Methods: This narrative review examines literature across multiple fields, including public health, psychology, and sociology. The literature selected for this review was identified through scientific databases including Web of Science, PubMed, JSTOR, and Google Scholar; primarily peer-reviewed empirical studies, literature reviews, and research reports published in English between 1981 and 2024; and principally based in the United States context. A synthesis of this literature is presented in a proposed conceptual model. Results: The literature supports the existence of two main predictors of housing insecurity: sociodemographic characteristics and the historical/current context. The main mediating pathways between housing insecurity and manifestations of stress include health behaviors, psychosocial resources, and structural resources. Moderating factors affecting the associations between housing insecurity and manifestations of stress include government assistance, chronic discrimination/unfair treatment, and individual differences. These interdependent mediating and moderating mechanisms affect stressor reactivity, a proximal manifestation of stress, which contributes to the physiological and epigenetic distal manifestations of stress in aging adults. Discussion and implications: The prevalence of housing insecurity among aging adults is growing in the United States, with significant implications for public health and health disparities, given the growing percentage of aging adults in the population. Further empirical testing of the mediating and moderating mechanisms proposed in the conceptual model will elucidate how housing insecurity is connected to health and provide insight into preventive strategies to ameliorate the adverse effects of housing insecurity on biological health among aging adults.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do Rental Assistance Programs Relieve Overcrowding for Children?

  Research Square · 2025-03-26

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The long-term effects of housing insecurity in young adulthood on subsequent material hardship, physiological and mental health

  Social Science & Medicine · 2025-01-25 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Economic and material hardship, including housing insecurity - limited or uncertain availability or access to safe, quality, and affordable housing - is strongly linked to negative physical and mental health outcomes among adolescents and adults. However, data limitations and the inherent selectivity of housing insecurity have hindered comprehensive analysis of its long-term effects on physiological and mental health. This study uses data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to construct a sample of participants who experienced housing insecurity between the ages of 18-26 (Wave III) to a suitable control group using propensity score matching. We assess the effects of housing insecurity on (1) material hardship at Wave IV (ages 24-32), (2) allostatic load (AL) and depression symptoms at Waves IV and V (ages 33-43), and (3) the change in allostatic load and depression symptoms from Wave IV to V. Further, we evaluate whether effects differ by sex. Experiencing housing insecurity is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of experiencing material hardship at Wave IV and significantly worse depressive symptoms at both Waves IV and V. The treatment effects are more pronounced among women, with housing insecurity being linked to a significant increase in allostatic load from Wave IV to Wave V exclusively for women. Our results provide crucial support that housing insecurity is not just an outcome of economic hardship but a cause of it in the future, with downstream effects on health and well-being, particularly for women.

  PublisherDOI

• Associations between Housing Insecurity and Physiological Health among Aging Adults in the United States

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Housing insecurity (HI) is a stressor that may have implications for physiological health. While extant literature has examined relationships between HI and physiological markers, these studies are limited by their cross-sectional nature and examine only composite allostatic load scores or individual physiological markers as outcomes of interest. In contrast, this study utilizes longitudinal data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study to assess associations between HI and composite allostatic load scores, as well as individual physiological subsystem scores that comprise allostatic load; and utilizes allostatic load scores from the prior wave of MIDUS to control for health selection. The analytic sample comprised 448 adults (mean age = 64.94, 55.80% female, 15.85% Black, 6.70% other non-white race). Controlling for sociodemographic and health covariates as well as prior wave inflammatory subsystem scores, HI was associated with significantly higher levels of inflammation; however, HI was not associated with overall allostatic load nor other physiological subsystems. We examined whether perceived and objective neighborhood quality moderated the association between HI and inflammation. With increased levels of HI, lower perceived neighborhood quality and higher scores of objective neighborhood deprivation were significantly associated with higher inflammation. Among participants who reported experiencing at least one HI event, those who rented their homes experienced higher inflammation compared to those who owned their homes outright. These analyses indicate inflammation may be a main biological pathway impacted by HI in aging adults, and have implications for health-related interventions to mitigate adverse health effects of HI in this vulnerable population.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Housing as Health Infrastructure: Advancing Dementia Care through System Integration and Policy Innovation

  American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry · 2025-12-14

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Housing Assistance and Health Care Access Among Older Adults with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias: Evidence from Multisource Linked Survey-Administrative Data

  American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry · 2025-11-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do later school start times improve adolescents' sleep and substance use? A quasi-experimental study

  Preventive Medicine · 2024-06-05 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F31AG039188

  NIH · $83k · 2012

• Residential Characteristics and Child Health and Well-Being

  NIH · $441k · 2019–2021

Frequent coauthors

• MyDzung T. Chu

  Tufts Medical Center

  44 shared

• Ami R. Zota

  Columbia University

  43 shared

• Gary Adamkiewicz

  Harvard University

  39 shared

• Judith Rodrıguez

  Harvard University

  37 shared

• Veronica E. Helms

  United States Department of Housing and Urban Development

  11 shared

• Patricia C. Lloyd

  Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

  10 shared

• Lauren M. Rossen

  10 shared

• Alan E. Simon

  National Institutes of Health

  10 shared