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37 comments on Another book for the shelf

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Leanan on December 13, 2005 - 12:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm curious about that, too.  I don't think I've heard that particular number, but I've heard several times that a lot of people freeze to death in the winter in the UK because they can't pay their bills.  Why would that be?  It's not a big problem in the US, and we offer a lot less of a social safety net than the UK.
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fallout on December 13, 2005 - 12:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
On average, it is colder in the UK than in the US.  That's not necessarily a statistic, just my opinion from having lived in both places.  It is also more damp, and the housing stock, on average, is significantly older.
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Twilight on December 13, 2005 - 2:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
So is there any consensus that this is a realistic number?
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dp1 on December 13, 2005 - 3:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The anecdotal evidence Nick Rouse gives below (old housing combined with lots of archaic and hard-to-maintain coal heat) seems plausible.  

I also agree that the 50,000 upper-bound excess mortality rate in the winter is foolish to ascribe entirely to hypothermia.  As just one example, in the US 30,000+ people (mostly elderly) die of the flu every year, so scaling to the UK that would be about 6,000 from flu alone, the great majority of them in the winter.

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