Affordable warmth: housing strategies for older people

Housing, Care and Support, < a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/toc/hcs/19/1" > Volume 19, Issue 1 < /a > , Page 23-31, March 2016. < br/ > Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consolidate policy, research, evidence and good practice around strategies tackling fuel poverty and affordable warmth for older people aged over 60 to support the development of more effective services for this life course stage and to tackle physical and mental health inequalities. Design/methodology/approach – The authors consolidate current policy, research, evidence and examples of good practice in exploring effective interprofessional approaches that contribute to affordable warmth for older people through “desktop analysis”. The authors supp ort this with qualitative data from Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs), health inequalities and environmental health from research comprising four longitudinal case studies in the Midlands and North of England over 18 months and semi-structured interviews with members and support officers. A total o f 50 interviews were undertaken and 55 hours of HWB meetings observed. Findings – There are numerous older people living in fuel poverty. The depth of fuel poverty increases with age particularly the over 75s and physical and mental ill health are affected. There are an increasing number of to ols to help estimate health care costs around the cost effectiveness of interventions and there is a real need for more local evidence about wha...

Source: Housing, Care and Support - July 4, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: research