Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune

The University of Houston is partnering with Fort Bend County Health and Human Services and PolicyMap, a data organization, to study the relationship between housing instability and mental health.

Researchers want to understand how unstable housing affects mental health and use that information to improve the county’s social services.

The plan is to survey about 850 residents and identify the parts of the county that are most affected by these problems.

UH Associate Professor Jeronimo Cortina said the survey will look at a range of housing issues — from homelessness to evictions and difficulty paying rent or a mortgage.

“What we want to understand is the whole continuum — how unstable housing might impact mental health and how the county can help with that intervention,” he said.

Cortina said she is working with Fort Bend Division of Social Services Assistant Director Shannon Gore, PolicyMap Senior Data Analyst Jason Linderman and fellow UH professor Renjie Hu.

The study will be funded by a more than $500,000 grant from the AIM-AHEAD Consortium, which is provided by the National Institutes of Health.

“Fort Bend County is a growing county — as you know — one of the most diverse counties in the country,” Cortina said. “And I think there’s a lot of opportunity.”