Retrofitting houses with insulation to reduce health inequalities: Aims and methods of a clustered, randomised community-based trial

Trends and determinants of excess winter mortality in New Zealand: 1980 to 2000

“…Further research should explore whether more tailored conclusions could be obtained if the specific pathways driving EWM were identified. For example, if annual peaks in winter mortality were associated with particularly cold indoor temperatures then it would be sensible to place greater emphasis on improved home heating and insulation whereas if winter peaks were associated with influenza epidemics then greater emphasis might be placed on more comprehensive influenza vaccination programme [24]. Future research could also investigate the effects of other potentially modifiable seasonal factors such as indoor air pollution, household crowding, and vitamin D deficiency.…”

Pragmatic Trials

“…107 Journals' space constraints have often prevented publication of a detailed description along with a report of the findings, but an increasing number provide for the publication of supplementary material on the web, and some, such as Addiction, now require a detailed protocol to be made available as a condition of publication. As suggested above (Question 3) prior publication of a protocol 26 methodological papers, 20 or an account of the development of the intervention 25 should also be considered (Case study 14). For a reliable assessment of the results of your evaluation, they need to be placed back in the context of other studies of similar interventions, if these exist.…”

Warm homes: Drivers of the demand for heating in the residential sector in New Zealand

“…Further insight into the occupants' behaviour in terms of energy consumption in NZ residential housing is available from the questionnaire included in the Housing, Insulation and Health Study (the Study) (Howden- Chapman et al, 2005). The Study was a single-blinded, clustered, randomised trial of the impacts of insulating existing houses.…”

“…The inclusion criteria were: a 7-12-year-old child, with doctor-diagnosed asthma, living in a household where the main form of heating was a plug-in electric heater or a UGH. Where necessary and possible, houses in the intervention and control group were insulated to the Building Code standard before baseline measurements were taken (Howden-Chapman et al, 2005). We asked all homeowners to choose from a range of suitable heaters that produced no indoor emissions, to replace their existing plug-in electric heaters or portable UGHs.…”