Fuel poverty and its links with other forms of disadvantage: a quantitative exploration

Nascimento, Christina 2021. Fuel poverty and its links with other forms of disadvantage: a quantitative exploration. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Fuel poverty – the inability to afford adequate energy services in the home – is an important public health issue and is recognised as a considerable source of health and social inequalities. Although often explored through the lens of a cold home, the literature shows that the experience of fuel poverty is nuanced and that households use a range of coping mechanisms to mitigate the effects of fuel poverty. This has been shown to influence the experience of fuel poverty, with some studies revealing links between fuel poverty and other forms of disadvantage. However, the myriad of objective and subjective ways used to identify the fuel poor in the literature has made it difficult to understand the relationship between fuel poverty and other forms of disadvantage in a consistent manner. This thesis presents a secondary quantitative exploration of the relationship between fuel poverty and other forms of disadvantage. Using data from two national surveys and two actual expenditure-based fuel poverty indicators, which are based on the official definitions of fuel poverty currently used within the UK, the thesis provides evidence of a relationship between fuel poverty and food insecurity, social isolation, and material deprivation, extending the quantitative literature on the experiences of the fuel poor. Moreover, the thesis finds that levels of disadvantage are altered by the fuel poverty indicator used and that the experience of disadvantage varies within fuel poverty indicators, providing novel contributions to the understanding of the heterogeneous nature of fuel poverty. These findings have important implications for how well the experiences of the fuel poor are captured in official definitions of fuel poverty and draws attention to the need for definitions to incorporate a more complete understanding of fuel poverty that reflects growing knowledge of how it can be experienced.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	3 August 2022
Last Modified:	11 Mar 2023 02:20
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/151661

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