Older People : Housing

1
Older People Housing Health

• Rosanne Sodzi
• Regional Public Health Team
• Department of Health

2
Summary

• Second Blooming report
• What is health, what are the issues for housing?
• Some South West facts figures
• LAAs an opportunity not to be missed!

3
Second Blooming?

• Aim of housing bulletin
• To examine how housing departments and services
  can work in partnership with other agencies to
  achieve a healthy and active mature population in
  the South West

4
Housing for older people

• Most older people live in their own home and
  wish to remain there.
• Very diverse needs healthy affluent to poor
  ill.
• Require a range of housing and services to meet
  the needs and aspirations of the whole community,
  promote equality, promote social exclusion.

5
What is health?

• A state of complete physical, mental, and social
  well-being
• and not merely the absence of disease or
  infirmity
• (WHO definition)

6
Health Inequalities
7
What Determines Health?
General socio-economic, cultural and
environmental conditions
Living and working conditions
Work environment
Unemployment
Social and community networks
Individual lifestyle factors

Water sanitation
Education
Health care services
Agriculture food production
Age, sex and constitutional factors
Housing
Source Dahlgren C and Whitehead M (1991)
8
What aspects of housing affect health of older
people?

• Poor housing conditions damp, condensation and
  mould growth
• Inadequate housing adaptations to support
  disability
• Poorly heated homes
• Defective and inadequate electrical wiring gas
  appliances
• Inadequate, old and unhygienic food preparation
  and washing facilities
• Crime, harassment vandalism within community

9
What are the health risks?

• Circulatory diseases
• Respiratory diseases
• Accidents (eg falls) fires
• Mobility difficulties
• Lifestyle factors nutrition, physical activity,
  smoking

10
SW Regional Issues

• Projected growth in the 65 population is 60,
  1 million people over 65 by 2028.
• Rural coastal areas have a greater percentage
  of older people within their population
• Urban areas have greater numbers, but represent
  smaller proportions.

11
Regional issues (continued)

• Levels of poverty lower than other regions but
  still 12.1 of population over 60 are income
  deprived.
• This group have also more limiting long term
  illness
• They also tend to live in social housing
• Tend to live in urban areas, though some pockets
  of rural deprivation.

12
of Older people living in Different Tenures
(South West, 2001 census)
13
South West Region Older people Not in good
health by Tenure (census 2001)
14
Local Area Agreements
15
Local Area Agreements

• Phase 1 Devon Dorset
• (running)
• Phase 2 Cornwall, Swindon, South
  Gloucestershire, Poole, Somerset
• (final drafts end of Feb 06)
• Phase 3 Bristol, BANES, North Somerset,
  Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bournemouth, Plymouth
  Torbay
• (negogiations start April 06)

16
Local Area Agreements

• 4 blocks one block is Healthier Communities
  Older People
• Important opportunity for joint working
• Opportunity for local issues to become more
  focussed
• Outcomes in the older peoples block have
  concentrated on reducing emergency bed days
• Stretch targets (12 per LAA) have large reward
  monies attached.

17
Has anything changed?

• People exposed to one type of disadvantage tend
  to accumulate others. The emphasis on single
  solutions has led to a multiplicity of agencies,
  each dealing with one type of disadvantage, and
  thus to the possibility that multiple
  disadvantaged people will fail to receive
  adequate help from any of them
• (from Helping Destitute Men Leach Wing 1980)