ABSTRACT
The principal aim of this book is to examine the relationship between domestic energy efficiency, fuel poverty and related health impacts using a comparative study framework. This study tests a number of principal hypotheses using European data. First, fuel poverty and poor domestic energy inefficiency is examined to assess its relationship with impaired health status. The second hypothesis asserts that fuel poverty and poor domestic energy inefficiency is strongly associated with high levels of excess winter mortality. The third hypothesis argues that a ‘Consensual’ approach to calculating fuel poverty results in more conservative, but more reliable, estimates than the standard definition. The fourth hypothesis examines whether the fuel-poor exhibit higher risk factors associated with poor health than others. The book then turns to issues of thermal comfort and examines whether the fuel-poor endure reduced thermal comfort in the home and lower ambient household temperatures. The final key hypothesis concerns the relationship between fuel poverty and excess winter deaths. In the final data analysis chapter, seasonal variations in mortality are examined against a wide range of social and economic factors, not just fuel poverty and inadequately insulated homes, to identify causality.
