Interview on energy poverty and ill-health with Dr. Lucie Middlemiss and Beverley Searle
Since the energy crisis started a few years ago, we hear more often about energy or fuel poverty. But how often do we talk about the concrete challenges and also the coping strategies of the people affected by it? And what does it mean for people’s health when they live in very cold or very hot homes? Our guests today are two brilliant researchers from the University of Leeds: Lucie Middlemiss and Beverly Searle. They have been leading the qualitative data collection in the WELLBASED project, looking at how people in energy poverty felt in their homes, how they dealt with limited access to energy and how this impacted their health and wellbeing. In our conversation Lucie and Beverley share their invaluable insights from over 150 qualitative interviews with people across six cities. We discuss the fragile health condition of people in energy poverty and try to untangle the many complex reasons for it. And when it comes to the solutions, local authorities definitely have a role to play. This episode was produced thanks to the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project WELLBASED: www.wellbased.eu