The Association of Energy Poverty with Health and Wellbeing in Children in a Mediterranean City

Abstract

Children have been identified as being particularly vulnerable to energy poverty (EP), but little empirical research has addressed the effect of EP on children’s health and wellbeing, especially in southern Europe. In this work we aimed to provide an in-depth description of the distribution of EP by sociodemographic, socioeconomic and housing characteristics, as well as to analyse the association between EP and health and wellbeing in children in Barcelona. We performed a cross-sectional study using data from the Barcelona Health Survey for 2016 (n = 481 children under 15 years). We analysed the association between EP and health outcomes through prevalence differences and prevalence ratios (PR) and their 95% confidence interval (CI), using Poisson regression models with robust variance. In Barcelona, 10.6% of children were living in EP and large inequalities were found by sociodemographic, socioeconomic and housing characteristics. EP was strongly associated with poor health in children (PR (95% CI): 7.70 (2.86, 20.72)). Living in EP was also associated with poor mental health (PR (95% CI): 2.46 (1.21, 4.99)) and with more cases of asthma (PR (95% CI): 4.19 (1.47, 11.90)) and overweight (PR (95% CI): 1.50 (1.05, 2.15)) in children. It is urgent to develop specific measures to avoid such serious and unfair health effects on children.

Who is vulnerable to energy poverty in the Global North, and what is their experience?

“…While the burgeoning interest in this topic has created a large range of evidence, there are still important research gaps. There are substantial differences between experiences in different nations, insights into Mediterranean (Oliveras et al, 2021) and eastern European (Buzar, 2007) experiences, for instance have already attracted some attention. A key focus for the future must be in understanding how the various factors articulated here manifest in different contexts, and how they interrelate to create effects for households in energy poverty.…”

Effect of Household Cooking Energy Poverty on Child Respiratory Health in Pakistan

“…Household air pollution caused increased infant mortality rate which could have been mitigated by using clean fuels along with the provision and use of efficient cooking stoves. Furthermore, energy poverty has a significant impact on poor health of children (Oliveras et al, 2021). Children in energy-poor households suffered from asthma problems three times more than those who are not living in energy poor households.…”

Overcoming Energy Poverty in Childhood from a Policy Perspective

“…Recent research conducted in the UK, Ireland, Northern America, Spain and New Zealand [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] evidences the distinct impacts of energy poverty on children, focussing primarily on physical health impacts 11,18,25,27,30,33,34 . Children are known to spend more time at home than adults 19,23 , so housing conditions are likely to affect them more.…”

“…A major difficulty in analysing the interactions between energy poverty and childhood, especially how it is addressed by public policy, is the lack of sufficient data to determine which children are actually living in energy poverty which represents a failure in itself. Notwithstanding, a growing body of research warns us about how a domestic energy deprivation can have specific impacts on children's physical health, mental health and educational development 11,18,25,27,30,33,34 . More effort is therefore needed to generate specific data on children that reflects their particular situation and not only in relation to their family composition.…”