An effort to remediate mold in public housing in New York City (NYC) was associated with thousands fewer emergency department visits for asthma per year, according to research presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI)2026 Annual Meeting.

Prior studies had shown repairing damp, moldy buildings may reduce respiratory symptoms such as wheezing.

The new study shows this phenomenon on a city-wide scale.

“Our study demonstrates that the system-wide mold intervention, Mold Busters, is making a difference for NYC public housing residents by successfully intervening on mold that triggers severe asthma attacks necessitating a visit to the emergency department,” said lead author Nina Flores, PhD, in a news release.

Flores, who recently received her PhD in environmental health sciences from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in NYC, is a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin.

A Focus on Indoor Fungi

In 2019, the New York City Housing Authority initiated the Mold Busters program, which bolstered tools and training for remediating mold in public housing and streamlined the housing authority’s response to reports of mold. After an initial service request and inspection, staff aim to complete repairs in 1 or 2 weeks, depending on the complexity of the job.

To assess the program’s effect on asthma, Flores and colleagues analyzed data from 2016 to 2023 on visits to the emergency department for asthma among residents in public housing. They compared these residents with those in nearby housing not run by the housing authority and used doubly robust differences-in-differences analyses to examine the effect of Mold Busters.

The researchers found Mold Busters was associated with an average of nine fewer asthma-related emergency department visits per 1000 residents per year, or nearly 2800 fewer emergency department visits per year overall.

The effect was stronger for adults and for residents whose buildings saw a steeper drop in mold reports.

Although mold work orders generally decreased after the launch of Mold Busters, they increased after extreme precipitation events, the researchers noted.

Further Benefit?

Beyond the emergency department, Mold Busters might provide additional asthma-related health benefits, Flores suggested in the news release. These include “the prevention of new asthma cases, as well as the prevention of less severe asthma symptoms and other allergic reactions that may necessitate school and work absences and unscheduled medical appointments,” she said.

Charles S. Barnes, PhD, who recently described how fungal allergens can affect respiratory allergic disease, said he was not surprised by the findings.

“This abstract is yet another report supporting a conclusion that has been developed over many years — namely that humans should not live in the presence of significant fungus,” Barnes told Medscape Medical News.

The Institute of Medicine Committee on Damp Indoor Spaces and Health raised this issue in 2004 with a report highlighting associations between damp indoor environments and respiratory health outcomes in sensitized people with asthma, Barnes noted.

At the time, few controlled studies had assessed the effectiveness of remediation, however.

In the past, he said, hospitals often studied how patients’ living conditions could affect illness.

“It is good to see public housing authorities picking up the banner,” he said.

Flores and Barnes reported having no disclosures.