Abstract
Energy poverty (often termed fuel poverty in the UK) turns cold, damp homes into chronic public health hazards. This paper uses the Orkney Islands, a rural and wind-exposed region of Scotland, to show how energy and housing systems structure differential access to adequate warmth and differential exposure to cold-related health risks. Using high-resolution housing energy performance data linked with income and deprivation indicators, the study maps where poor thermal efficiency, high heating costs and low incomes collide. It connects these clusters to elevated risks of respiratory and cardiovascular illness, accidents in the home, stress, anxiety, social isolation, and longer-term impacts on children’s development and pupil attainment. The analysis shows how official energy/fuel poverty metrics and retrofit rules routinely underestimate risk in rural and island settings, obscuring everyday trade-offs between heating, food and other essentials. What looks “efficient enough” on paper can mean chronic cold, damp and health damage in practice. The paper argues that access to safe indoor temperatures must be treated as a non-negotiable public health duty. It calls for public health agencies, housing providers and energy regulators to: target retrofits and financial support at the most thermally and financially exposed homes; integrate cold-home risk into health surveillance and primary care pathways; and embed duties to prevent foreseeable harm from cold and damp housing in policy and regulation. Reframing energy poverty as a preventable public health failure opens a path for rural and island regions to move from short-term crisis response to durable, justice-oriented heating transitions.
Presenters
Androniki PapathanasiPhD Student - Research Assistant, School of Engineering - Institute for Energy Systems, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom Daniel Friedrich
Chair of Energy Systems, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom Karla G. Cedano
Head, Technology Management and Liaison, UNAM Instituto de Energías Renovables, Morelos, Mexico
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
ENERGY POVERTY, PUBLIC HEALTH, SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH, EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES
