Abstract
Many cold and temperate regions around the world will experience hotter and drier summers, and more frequent and severe heatwaves, due to anthropogenic climate change. People above 65 years of age are more vulnerable to heat effects and more likely to spend a large proportion of their time indoors. These warming trends, combined with a rapidly growing number of old people as a result of global ageing population trends, will pose significant pressures on social care systems. The indoor environment is a key moderator of heat exposure. There is an urgent need, therefore, to enhance our understanding of the role that building design and heat management can play in care settings occupied by older and heat vulnerable people in terms of decreasing indoor heat exposure and associated health impacts. This chapter presents an overview of existing research on levels of indoor overheating in care settings under the current and future climate. It also discusses the factors that contribute to indoor overheating risk and the barriers in the implementation of overheating mitigation strategies, ranging from building design factors to sociotechnical parameters. Last, it presents climate change adaptation pathways for care settings, with a focus on excess heat exposure prevention measures, for a range of care provision actors and stakeholders.
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This work was supported by the UK Natural Research Council (NERC, grant numbers NE/S016767/1 and NE/T013729/1).
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Mavrogianni, A. et al. (2021). Indoor Overheating, Climate Resilience, and Adaptation of Care Settings. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Climate Resilient Societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32811-5_12-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32811-5_12-1
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