The associations between thermal variety and health: Implications for space heating energy use
Open accessAbstract
Fossil fuels dominate domestic heating in temperate climates. In the EU, domestic space heating accounts for around 20% of final energy demand. Reducing domestic demand temperatures would reduce energy demand. However, cold exposure has been shown to be associated with adverse health conditions. Using an observational dataset of 77,762 UK Biobank participants, we examine the standard deviation of experienced temperature (named here thermal variety) measured by a wrist worn activity and temperature monitor. After controlling for covariates such as age, activity level and obesity, we show that thermal variety is 0.15°C 95% CI [0.07-0.23] higher for participants whose health satisfaction was 'extremely happy' compared to 'extremely unhappy'. Higher thermal variety is also associated with a lower risk of having morbidities related to excess winter deaths. We argue that significant CO2 savings would be made by increasing thermal variety and reducing domestic demand temperatures in the healthiest homes. However, great care is needed to avoid secondary health impacts due to mould and damp. Vulnerable households should receive increased attention.
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Reported temperature values match those used in a prior thorough investigation which corrected a flaw in earlier processing pipelines.
“This makes our reported values match those used in a prior, thorough investigation of these temperature values17 which corrected a flaw in earlier processing pipelines.”
From Diurnal rhythms of wrist temperature are associated with future disease risk in the UK Biobank (2023) · cites this paper as [17]
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Diurnal rhythms of wrist temperature are associated with future disease risk in the UK Biobank
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- Authors
- Kennard, H. R., Huebner, G. M., Shipworth, D., & Oreszczyn, T.
- Affiliations
- Energy Institute (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Kennard, Harry R.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2020-07-22
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- e0236116
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7375518
- OpenAlex
- W3045194794
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 0.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L01517X/1, EP/H009612/1)
- Research Councils UK (EP/R 035288/1, EP/K011839)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Building Energy and Comfort Optimization
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Energy and Environment Impacts
- Keywords
- residential heating, cold exposure, health satisfaction, energy demand, carbon emission reduction, vulnerable families, UK Biobank
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cold Temperature, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Heating, Housing, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Prognosis, Respiratory Insufficiency, Survival Rate
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