Housing & Environment
In this theme, we explore the relationships between housing conditions, the environment, and people’s health and wellbeing. We also examine travel behaviours, and their impacts on the environment, economy and health.
The theme aligns with Scottish Government commitments on the climate emergency and Net Zero, as well as housing, fuel poverty, health and active travel. There is further potential to inform policy on social housing, tenant rights and homelessness.
Lead: Professor Nick Bailey, University of Glasgow and Professor Chris Dibben, University of Edinburgh
Over the next five years, our researchers will:
- Investigate how improvements in the energy efficiency of housing can affect energy consumption and fuel poverty risks, as well as people’s health, children’s attendance at school or adults’ participation in the labour force.
- Explore the effects of Government schemes related to energy efficiency or clean heat such as the Warmer Homes programme, looking at the distribution of support and its impacts on energy use, health and economic participation.
- Work with major social landlords to understand how large-scale retrofit programmes affect residents’ energy use and health.
- Work with Scottish local authorities to understand critical events in people’s pathways into homelessness to support prevention initiatives.
- Analyse whether residents in different communities have a choice of how they commute to work or school, and how those choices affect their health.
- Analyse how early life factors – where people grow up or the activities they engage in as young people – can affect active travel choices in later life.
Our researchers will use a variety of linked data, including two new datasets: first, the Annual energy consumption data for properties in Scotland, and second, the Home Energy Efficiency Database (HEED). These datasets are expanding research opportunities, enabling analysis of household emissions, energy efficiency and the wider impacts of housing conditions on health and wellbeing.
Overall, this theme strengthens the evidence base for policies that improve living conditions, environmental sustainability and community wellbeing.
