ABSTRACT
Introduction Cold homes have been linked to poor health by many studies; the extreme example of this is the phenomenon of excess winter deaths (where more deaths are recorded between December and March than expected from the death rates in other months of the year). Some studies link particular health outcomes with temperature; one important study shows a minima in cardiovascular mortality at a daily mean temperature of about 20∞C and an increase in mortality both as the temperature drops from this point and also as it rises (Wilkinson et al 2001). This relationship has been shown for many cities around the world with the minima consistently near 20∞C, except for some tropical countries that have higher minima (Healy 2003).
