Health, Well-Being and Energy Poverty in Europe: A Comparative Study of 32 European Countries

Harriet Thomson, Carolyn Snell and Stefan Bouzarovski
Additional contact information
Harriet Thomson: School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Carolyn Snell: Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
Stefan Bouzarovski: School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-20

Abstract: Despite growing pan-European interest in and awareness of the wide-ranging health and well-being impacts of energy poverty—which is characterised by an inability to secure adequate levels of energy services in the home—the knowledge base is largely British-centric and dominated by single-country studies. In response, this paper investigates the relationship between energy poverty, health and well-being across 32 European countries, using 2012 data from the European Quality of Life Survey. We find an uneven concentration of energy poverty, poor health, and poor well-being across Europe, with Eastern and Central Europe worst affected. At the intersection of energy poverty and health, there is a higher incidence of poor health (both physical and mental) amongst the energy poor populations of most countries, compared to non-energy poor households. Interestingly, we find the largest disparities in health and well-being levels between energy poor and non-energy poor households occur within relatively equal societies, such as Sweden and Slovenia. As well as the unique challenges brought about by rapidly changing energy landscapes in these countries, we also suggest the relative deprivation theory and processes of social comparison hold some value in explaining these findings.

Keywords: energy poverty; fuel poverty; relative deprivation; health inequalities; well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/6/584/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/6/584/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:6:p:584-:d:100093

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().