The real cost of poor housing
Author: Simon Nicol. Building Research Establishment, Watford, WD25 9XX, UK.
This paper was entered into a competition launched by --BRE Group and UBM called to investigate the link between buildings and the wellbeing of those who occupy them.
Abstract:
Poor housing = poor health. But can we quantify this, in terms of the money that it is costing the National Health Service to treat housing related health problems? This paper reports on a BRE Trust research project which aims to: identify hazards in the home; measure their impact on the health and safety of the occupants; quantify the costs and benefits of reducing these hazards to an acceptable level. The research is possible because health and safety risk data have become available from the English Housing Survey, which can be combined with treatment cost data from the National Health Service.
The worst housing risk to health in England is a cold home, followed by fall hazards due to the design or condition of the dwelling. Some 4.8 million homes have such hazards and the cost of remedial action is estimated to be some £18bn. If they were all improved immediately, it is estimated that they would save the NHS some £600m per year in direct treatment costs. An output of the research is a ‘calculator’, which is being used by housing authorities to promote effective home improvements to vulnerable people and then measure their cost-benefit.
Key words: = housing, health, vulnerable, cost, benefit
Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- A measure of net well-being that incorporates the effect of housing environmental impacts.
- Adapting 1965-1980 semi-detached dwellings in the UK to reduce summer overheating and the effect of the 2010 Building Regulations.
- Changing lifestyles
- Creating strong communities – measuring social sustainability in new housing development.
- Decent Homes for Ageing Well.
- Decent homes standard.
- Energy companies obligation ECO.
- Fuel poverty.
- Heat Energy: The Nation’s Forgotten Crisis.
- Homes and ageing in England.
- Quantifying the health benefits of the Decent Homes programme FB 64.
- The cost-benefit to the NHS arising from preventative housing interventions (FB82).
- The cold man of europe 2015.
- The cost of poor housing to the NHS.
- The design of extra care housing for older people and its impact on wellbeing: The East Sussex perspective.
- The full cost of poor housing.
- The full cost of poor housing in Wales.
- The Housing Stock of The United Kingdom.
- What's the condition of your housing stock?
Featured articles and news
ECA 2022 Apprentice of the Year Award returns
Winner from last three to be announced in September.
The end of the games but continued calls for action.
From the Commonwealth Association of Architects.
CIOB respond to the government call for evidence
For the Levelling Up, Housing & Communities Committee.
How are buildings and their occupants responding to extreme heat?
BSRIA's Technical Director reflects on recent weather patterns.
Landownership in England in 1909
A national valuation to fund old-age pensions.
The world’s largest Commonwealth memorial to the missing.
Long after the end of the defects liability period.
BSRIA Occupant Wellbeing survey BOW
Occupant satisfaction and wellbeing in buildings.
Geometric form and buildings in brief
From the simple to the complex.
Understanding the changing nature of insulation
And the UK Government guidelines.
Three year action plan to improve equity, diversity and inclusion
Commitment agreed to by major built environment bodies.
The Construction Route – what needs to change?
Electrical skills, low carbon, high-tech and the building services revolution.
Deep geothermal power possibilities
Ultra-deep drilling with millimeter-wave beam technology.
BSRIA Briefing 2022- From the outside looking in
Looking at the built environment from space.
Competence requirements for principal contractors and designers
BSI standards 8671, 8672 and 8673.
Bringing life to burial grounds.
From failed modernism to twenty-minute neighbourhoods.
Design chill and design freeze
The gates process and change control.
Neuroscience for project success
Why people behave as they do. APM book.