US mold & dampness data
US mold & dampness statistics
The health cost of home dampness and mold, the share of US homes affected and the asthma burden — every figure cited. Free to reuse (CC BY 4.0).
Dampness and mold are among the most widespread problems in US housing — and the cost shows up as a measurable public-health burden, not just a repair bill. Every figure below is a real, published number tied to the primary source beside it.
Health cost of dampness & mold
$15.1B
estimated annual US cost of asthma illness attributable to home dampness and mold — one of four illness categories that together total about $22 billion a year.
Source: Mudarri 2016, J. Environ. Public Health · 2014$
Annual US health cost, by illness
≈ $22.4B combined · 2014$Source: Mudarri 2016, J. Environ. Public Health — full economic cost of illness (2014$). The four categories are each a directly-reported figure; the combined total is their sum.
How widespread it is
Dampness and mold are common across US housing, and the health signal is consistent across studies.
Methodology, citing & reuse
Every figure on this page is a real, published number tied to the primary source listed beside it — no spun "mold stats." The economic figures are Mudarri (2016), which values the US cost of illness from indoor dampness and mold in 2014 dollars; the four illness categories are each reported directly and the ≈$22.4B combined figure is their sum. Prevalence and asthma-burden figures come from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the EPA and peer-reviewed work. Figures were last checked against their sources on 2026-07-14. We show no year-over-year mold trend on purpose: national survey mold counts are too noisy to chart as a trend honestly.
Our charts are licensed CC BY 4.0 — republish them with attribution to DisasterStatus and a link back.
Cite this page
DisasterStatus, “US mold & indoor-dampness statistics” (2026). https://disasterstatus.com/statistics/mold
Primary sources
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