Managing at Home in Times of Crisis: How Climate, COVID-19 and Cost of Living Crises Intersect in Everyday Life and What We Can Do About It

近年来，英国家庭受到了本已脆弱的社会体系的外部冲击：生活成本危机、气候危机和COVID-19。这些冲击直接影响了家庭的日常生活：造成经济困难、健康状况不佳和社会孤立。它们还暴露出我们的住房基础设施不足以承受高温，无法减少疾病传播，无法提供良好的室内空气质量，也无法在能源价格高企的情况下为人们提供抵御高温和寒冷的住所。人们在家庭环境中度过了相当多的时间：长达三分之二的生命，因此它对健康和幸福的影响至关重要。我们发现，家庭应对这些危机的方式可能对其环境和/或健康产生意想不到的或相互矛盾的后果。例如，一些降低高能源成本的战略可能造成不良的室内环境，对健康产生长期影响。尽管人们关注室外空气质量，但越来越清楚的是，直到最近，室内空气污染在很大程度上被忽视了。室内空气质量包括潮湿和发霉，这两个问题在不富裕和暖气不足的家庭中都是很严重的问题。这个博士项目采用跨学科的整体系统方法来解决这些问题，利用监督团队的综合专业知识，并支持学生跨越学科界限思考。家庭和日常生活是项目的中心，我们希望候选人将其作为探索如何管理和体验这些交叉危机的空间。实证研究的重点将放在英国不同范围的低收入家庭上，重点是了解房屋的工程设计，人们如何以不同的方式管理他们的家庭环境，以及技术、实践和法规对他们的健康和福祉有什么连锁反应。我们将鼓励候选人识别加剧的影响（例如，由于试图保暖而缺乏通风导致的霉菌生长）和良性循环（例如，在炎热的天气中获得凉爽的温度及其对健康的影响）。他们将了解不同类型的家庭管理的结果，以及发生这些结果的社会人口模式。例如，我们知道与烹饪有关的做法会影响室内空气质量，而且不同家庭的烹饪方式也因生活阶段、种族和其他因素而大不相同。除了这些社会方面，该项目还将关注物理环境特征，包括建筑设计、供暖和通风系统，以及它们如何影响能源使用和室内空气质量参数。我们希望在这项研究中利用一系列第一手和第二手的数据。这将包括有关建筑物类型、建筑和工程系统的数据；特定建筑物的室内空气质量随时间变化；研究中的城市外部空气质量；关于燃料贫穷生活经验的定性数据；特定社区的定量人口统计数据（可通过人口普查和多重剥夺指数获得）。作为该项目的影响驱动成果，我们期望候选人起草政策建议，以指导如何有效管理促进健康和福祉的一系列家庭环境。我们还可以提供与一系列对项目成果感兴趣的利益相关者更密切合作的机会，包括利兹市议会、住房协会和UKHSA。最后，我们在奥尔堡大学丹麦建筑研究所的国际合作伙伴，包括一个致力于建筑和住宅实践的跨学科学者领导小组，热衷于为候选人举办一次机构访问。

In recent years, households in the UK have been rocked by external shocks to our already delicate social system: the cost of living crisis, the climate crisis and COVID-19. These shocks have directly shaped the everyday lives of households: creating financial hardship, ill health and social isolation. They have also exposed our housing infrastructure as inadequate to withstand high temperatures, to reduce disease spread, to provide good indoor air quality, and to shelter people against the heat and cold in the context of high energy prices. People spend a substantial amount of their time in the home environment: up to 2/3 of their life, and as such its effect on health and wellbeing is critical.We find that the ways in which households respond to these crises can have unintended or contradictory consequences for their environment and/or their health. For example, some strategies to mitigate high energy costs can create poor indoor environments with long lasting health effects. Despite the focus on outdoor air quality, it is increasingly clear that indoor air pollution has been largely ignored until recently. Indoor air quality includes damp and mould both of which are significant issues in less affluent and underheated homes.This PhD project takes an interdisciplinary whole systems approach to addressing these problems, drawing on the combined expertise of the supervisory team, and supporting the student to think across disciplinary boundaries. The home and everyday life is at the centre of the project, and we expect the candidate to use this as a space in which to explore how these intersecting crises are managed and experienced. The empirical focus will be on diverse range of low-income households in the UK, with an emphasis on understanding the engineering design of homes, how people manage their home environment in different ways, and what knock-on effects technologies, practices and regulations have on their health and wellbeing. We will encourage the candidate to identify exacerbating effects (e.g. mould growth as a result of lack of ventilation due to attempts to keep warm) and virtuous circles (e.g. access to cool temperatures in hot weather and their impact on health). They will develop an understanding of the outcomes of different kinds of household management, and the socio-demographic patterns with which these occur. For instance, we know that practices associated with cooking have an impact on internal air quality, and that different households cook very differently, according to lifestage, ethnicity and other factors. Alongside these social aspects, the project will look at the physical environment characteristics including the building design, heating and ventilation systems and how this affects both energy use and indoor air quality parameters. We expect to draw on a range of primary and secondary data in this study. This will include data on building types, construction and engineering systems; indoor air quality over time in specific buildings; external air quality in the urban domain under study; qualitative data on lived experience of Fuel Poverty; and quantitative demographic data on specific neighbourhoods (available through the census, and index of multiple deprivation). As an impact-driven outcome to the project, we will expect the candidate to draft policy recommendations for guidance on effectively managing a range of home environments for health and wellbeing. We also can offer the opportunity to work more closely with a range of stakeholders interested in the outcomes of the project throughout, including Leeds City Council, housing associations and UKHSA. Finally, our international partners at the Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University, which includes a leading group of interdisciplinary academics working on buildings and resident practices, are keen to host an institutional visit for the candidate.