Pat Part 1 Reflective Exercise
Identifying people at risk
In Part 1 we would like you to consider what factors put people like Pat at risk of being cold at home.
As we get older there are many things that influence our health. The situations we live in and the context of our lives all impact upon our health and will make us more or less vulnerable to threats such as cold weather. In later life our health will be influenced by whether we had a good start in life and how many threats and hardships we have had to endure. It is useful to think across the lifespan when evaluating someone's health risk [3]. You may want to consider how people in the pen portraits will have been affected by their previous life and the mixture of influences they have been exposed to.
Over time people encounter events that may impact on health. These include the onset of illness, marriage or divorce, getting or losing a job, retirement and moving house. Life events may have a negative or positive impact. For many of the people in these pen portraits life events have not treated them kindly. This means they are at greater risk of fuel poverty or are not in a position to heat their home. Sometimes this will be for a mixture of complex reasons that hinder them in heating the home, affording fuel or making decisions to protect their health.
Part 1 Question 1
Reflections on Question 1
You have probably identified the following things that put people like Pat at risk of being cold in their home.
- Low income
- Socially isolated
- Lives alone
- Living in privately rented accommodation
- Having poor health
If you have a particular interest in any of these issues you might like to access further reading and develop a more critical account about the risks for people like Pat of being cold in their home.