Keeping our children warm and dry: evidence from growing up in New Zealand

Abstract

Pilot data that we have collected utilises the Leading Light group of children who are part of New Zealand’s contemporary child cohort study Growing Up in New Zealand. While the Leading Light group is not representative of all NZ children, preliminary measures of indoor home environments suggest that there are potentially many homes where NZ children are living that have poor indoor climate conditions. These conditions could potentially be associated with an increased risk of respiratory health problems in young children. At present, the quality of home and school indoor environments experienced by New Zealand children at an individual level is not well documented. This pilot study aimed to test and recommend a data collection method for measuring indoor climate information for the next Growing Up in New Zealand main cohort data collection wave planned to be undertaken in 2017. The pilot study collected measurements of the indoor climates of the homes and schools of approximately 100 children from the Leading Light group of the Growing Up in New Zealand cohort. The main reason for undertaking this measurement in the Leading Light families was to test the feasibility of collecting indoor temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide levels and neighbourhood ambient climatic information within this established cohort. The main objective was to report on the feasibility of potentially measuring these key parameters as part of a larger Data Collection Wave to be conducted in the homes of the cohort children when they are approximately 8 years old. Some illustrative descriptive data analyses are provided for environmental measures according to geographical region, time of the measurements, fuel poverty, household dampness, use of unflued gas heating and household crowding. The results are indicative of the analyses that could be undertaken on the main cohort (of over 6000 children and families) but are not appropriate to be used to describe further associations. The preliminary analyses were designed to assist with the evaluation of two measurement approaches, and represent the utility of measurements in different time and location, capability to capture cold and damp situation, convenience in equipment operation and maintenance and the accuracy of the equipment being used. The overall purpose of the pilot study was to make recommendations about how we could feasibly measure home environments for all the children in the main cohort of Growing Up in New Zealand. After considering the results of this pilot we recommend that the child’s measurement undertaken as part of a Time Use Diary exercise is the most cost effective method to collect accurate indoor climate information for the main cohort study of Growing Up in New Zealand.