Improving what we know about the impact of retrofit
In his blog, Michael Tornow, Senior Health Improvement Officer at Public Health Scotland, discusses a review into the impact of retrofit that his organisation is conducting.
Can you help Public Health Scotland review the impact of housing retrofit?
Retrofitting the current housing stock to be more energy efficient and able to use decarbonised heating sources are two key ways in which Scotland will reduce its carbon emissions. We know that actions to reduce GHG emissions can also have health and social benefits but can sometimes have unintended negative consequences. Understanding these wider impacts can help inform the delivery of actions which promote health for everyone as well as reduce GHG emissions.
In 2017, the Scottish Government commissioned a review of the wider impacts of mitigation options in the built environment which revealed potential positive benefits of retrofitting housing for physical and mental health but also identified possible unintended negative consequences like reduce ventilation, poorer indoor air quality and over-heating.
With this in mind, it is important for us to know more about how housing retrofit impacts tenants.
This is why Public Health Scotland is carrying out a scoping review to see if there has been any further research on the impact (either positive and negative) of energy efficiency interventions or introducing decarbonised heating on health or aspects that influence health. Aspects that influence health includes things like opportunities for social interactions, play, doing homework, educational outcomes, satisfaction with their home; household finances, fuel bills, rent prices and aspects of the indoor environment such as air quality, thermal comfort, noise, and humidity.
The review will look for any evidence for how impact varies across population group, housing type and tenure and what mitigation measures have been implemented to address any negative impact.
Can you help with the review?
Public Health Scotland is keen to includes research examples from Scotland about experiences tenants have of retrofit. Could you share any research, evaluations or assessments you have done on retrofitting your housing stock and the impact, good or bad, this has had for your tenants? If you can contact me by emailing Michael.tornow@phs.scot