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New York City’s mold removal program has cut asthma visits to the ER by nearly a quarter
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Overall, there were about 2,800 fewer ER visits from 2021 to 2023
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The Mold Busters program has improved mold removal in public housing
MONDAY, May 18, 2026 (NewsDay News) — A New York City mold removal program has cut asthma-related ER visits among public housing residents by a quarter, a new study says.
The city created Mold Buster in 2019 in response to a class-action lawsuit filed by residents suffering from mold in their homes, researchers said.
The program led to a 25 percent reduction in asthma-related emergency department visits, researchers reported Sunday at the Asthma Annual Meeting. American Thoracic Society (ATS).
“These results suggest that residential interventions on asthma triggers may play an important role in reducing long-term asthma disparities,” said the lead researcher. Nina Flores it is said in the news. Flores is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work.
According to this information, mold is a known asthma trigger US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers said the Mold Busters program improved the city’s response to reports of mold in public housing and trained staff on evidence-based ways to best remediate it.
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.
The results showed that people served by Mold Busters had, on average, nine times fewer asthma-related ER visits per 1,000 people compared to residents in similar non-mold areas.
Overall, the researchers said, this translates to about 2,800 fewer ER visits between 2021 and 2023 compared to the 2016 to 2018 period before Mold Busters was implemented.
Flores noted that the buildings with the most mold complaints also saw a sharp drop in asthma-related ER visits — an indication that Mold Busters can actually improve residents’ health.
Flores said the program’s impact was even better than what was found here because the researchers didn’t track less severe asthma or allergy problems that could cause someone to miss work or school without needing to go to the ER.
“The health benefits reported here likely underestimate the full range of health-related benefits of the intervention,” he said.
The ATS meeting was held in Orlando, Florida.
Results presented at medical meetings must be considered preliminary in order to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more information mold and health.
Source: American Thoracic Society, release, May 17, 2026
What does this mean for you?
Mold in homes can cause allergies and asthma attacks.
