New Research Shows NYCHA Mold Reforms Linked to 2,798 Fewer Asthma Emergency Room Visits Per Year

BRONX, NY — New peer-reviewed research presented at the 2026 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting finds that NYCHA’s citywide Mold Busters initiative is associated with an average annual reduction of 2,798 asthma-related emergency department visits among public housing residents.

The study, led by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, analyzed asthma-related emergency department data from 2016 to 2023 and found that the Mold Busters intervention was associated with an average reduction of 9.0 emergency department visits per 1,000 residents per year.

NYCHA houses more than 400,000 predominantly Black, Hispanic, and low-income New Yorkers, communities that have long faced disproportionately high asthma rates and chronic mold exposure.

Mold Busters was created by NYCHA in response to a lawsuit brought by tenant and community leaders working with Metro IAF affiliates, including South Bronx Churches. Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) has worked closely with NYCHA residents, Metro IAF, and South Bronx Churches to push for stronger accountability and compliance in mold remediation. Additionally, Congressman Torres has partnered with Metro IAF to promote the Ombudsman Call Center (OCC), ensuring residents knew they had a mechanism to escalate unresolved mold and leak complaints. The OCC was also created as part of the consent decree in the same suit, and Congressman Torres helped to publicly support its creation by the court.

More than 30,000 NYCHA households have received assistance through the OCC since its creation, helping residents secure long-overdue repairs and increasing pressure on NYCHA to meet remediation standards.

“For decades, mold in public housing was brushed aside as a nuisance, but for NYCHA families, it has been a health crisis,” said Congressman Torres. “I grew up in NYCHA housing and was hospitalized with asthma attacks tied to unsafe living conditions, so this is not abstract for me. Residents organized, Metro IAF pushed, and independent oversight forced NYCHA to take mold remediation seriously. This research shows that those efforts have produced measurable, life-changing progress for NYCHA tenants. Nearly 2,800 fewer emergency room visits a year is what accountability looks like.”

“While the progress towards improving quality of life in public housing has been way too slow, we are gratified to see that this study confirms that the work we have been pushing for with NYCHA has led to real improvements for tenants’ respiratory health,” said Father Frank Skelly from Immaculate Conception Church in the South Bronx and Metro IAF. “We are also grateful to Congressman Torres for his work on helping to make this progress happen.”

The Mold Busters program, implemented in 2019, introduced enhanced training, improved tools, and a streamlined response system to address mold complaints. Researchers used a rigorous differences-in-differences analysis comparing NYCHA residents with similar lower-income residents in nearby non-NYCHA census tracts. The results were strongest in buildings that saw the largest reductions in mold reports.

The study also notes that extreme precipitation events can increase mold reports, underscoring the need for climate-resilient investment in public housing infrastructure.

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