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The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study

Ageing brings about physiological changes that affect people’s thermal sensitivity and thermoregulation. The majority of older Australians prefer to age in place and modifications to the home environment are often required to accommodate the occupants as they age and possibly become frail. However,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: van Hoof, Joost, Bennetts, Helen, Hansen, Alana, Kazak, Jan K., Soebarto, Veronica
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30875903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16060935
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author van Hoof, Joost
Bennetts, Helen
Hansen, Alana
Kazak, Jan K.
Soebarto, Veronica
author_facet van Hoof, Joost
Bennetts, Helen
Hansen, Alana
Kazak, Jan K.
Soebarto, Veronica
author_sort van Hoof, Joost
collection PubMed
description Ageing brings about physiological changes that affect people’s thermal sensitivity and thermoregulation. The majority of older Australians prefer to age in place and modifications to the home environment are often required to accommodate the occupants as they age and possibly become frail. However, modifications to aid thermal comfort are not always considered. Using a qualitative approach this study aims to understand the thermal qualities of the existing living environment of older South Australians, their strategies for keeping cool in hot weather and warm in cold weather and to identify existing problems related to planning and house design, and the use of heating and cooling. Data were gathered via seven focus group sessions with 49 older people living in three climate zones in South Australia. The sessions yielded four main themes, namely ‘personal factors’, ‘feeling’, ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. These themes can be used as a basis to develop information and guidelines for older people in dealing with hot and cold weather.
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spelling pubmed-64662002019-04-22 The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study van Hoof, Joost Bennetts, Helen Hansen, Alana Kazak, Jan K. Soebarto, Veronica Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Ageing brings about physiological changes that affect people’s thermal sensitivity and thermoregulation. The majority of older Australians prefer to age in place and modifications to the home environment are often required to accommodate the occupants as they age and possibly become frail. However, modifications to aid thermal comfort are not always considered. Using a qualitative approach this study aims to understand the thermal qualities of the existing living environment of older South Australians, their strategies for keeping cool in hot weather and warm in cold weather and to identify existing problems related to planning and house design, and the use of heating and cooling. Data were gathered via seven focus group sessions with 49 older people living in three climate zones in South Australia. The sessions yielded four main themes, namely ‘personal factors’, ‘feeling’, ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. These themes can be used as a basis to develop information and guidelines for older people in dealing with hot and cold weather. MDPI 2019-03-15 2019-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6466200/ /pubmed/30875903 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16060935 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
van Hoof, Joost
Bennetts, Helen
Hansen, Alana
Kazak, Jan K.
Soebarto, Veronica
The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study
title The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study
title_full The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study
title_fullStr The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study
title_full_unstemmed The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study
title_short The Living Environment and Thermal Behaviours of Older South Australians: A Multi-Focus Group Study
title_sort living environment and thermal behaviours of older south australians: a multi-focus group study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30875903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16060935
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