Videos
Rehousing for older social housing tenants in Hackney, London
Appropriate housing is fundamental to health and wellbeing. Rehousing programmes are an important means to support older adults to move to more suitable homes. Working with Dr Stefanie Buckner and her colleagues from Cambridge University, we created this 15-minute film describing research in Hackney/London into how well rehousing programmes for older social housing tenants are working.
The film presents the methods used by the researchers, including a photography project capturing older tenants’ rehousing experiences, and it highlights what the research has found. It features older tenants and housing professionals who participated in the study discussing where rehousing programmes are working well, and where improvements are needed.
You can access a short (2 minutes 20 seconds) version of the film here
The Killer in the Kitchen
We made this 4-minute video to describe work being carried out by the Liverpool University’s NIHR-funded Global Research Group ‘CLEAN-Air (Africa)’ (now a Unit) to reduce the disease burden caused by the polluting household fuels that are still relied upon by 3 billion people.
The research programme is led by Professor Daniel Pope at Liverpool, and works in collaboration with a number of Sub-Saharan African countries that are committed to switching their populations away from polluting household fuels.
The film highlights two key initiatives from the group’s activities that are designed to help accelerate the transition to clean fuels, namely ‘Pay-as-you-go’ LPG systems using smart-meters and mobile money, and training of community health workers across the country.
Valuable as these initiatives are, it is also clear that without more such innovation and appropriate investment, Africa will not reach the SDG-7 target of universal access to modern energy by 2030.
The silent killer in African homes
This 22-minute documentary exposes a hidden public health crisis across Africa: carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the widespread use of solid fuels – especially charcoal – for cooking and heating in poorly ventilated homes. Driven by necessity and a lack of awareness, families are unknowingly putting their lives at risk every day. The result is thousands of avoidable deaths, often claiming children, pregnant women, and otherwise healthy young people. The film opens with the following harrowing true story shared by a senior official from Kenya’s Ministry of Health – an incident from her own experience that reflects a tragedy far too common across the continent
‘It’s a quiet evening. A young woman, pregnant with her second child, prepares a simple meal of githeri (traditional Kenyan meal including beans and maize) over a charcoal stove. She’s making it for her husband for him to take to work early in the morning. Like many urban Kenyan families, they rely on charcoal for cooking. As night falls, the family goes to sleep, unaware that their small, poorly ventilated home is filling with a deadly gas. In the early hours, the husband wakes, groggy and confused. He checks on his wife and young son. Neither stirs. Alarmed, he rushes outside to call for help. But it’s too late. His wife and unborn child are gone. He and his son survive—but barely.’
This tragedy is not an isolated incident. In Kenya alone, carbon monoxide poisoning claims an estimated 400 lives every year. Across Africa, the death toll exceeds 6,000 annually. These are deaths for which we know the cause, and could be easily prevented. Co-produced by the CLEAN-Air (Africa) research team at the University of Liverpool and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), this film investigates how a deadly mix of poverty, outdated cooking practices, and lack of awareness continues to cost lives. Through a case study of community health promoter tarining , the film also offers genuine opportuities for believing that this tool on the continent’s health can be reduced and ultimately avoided completely.
Healthy Kitchens: clearing the air for African schools
How healthy are school kitchens in Sub-Saharan Africa? And what are their impacts on the environment and climate? While providing vital, balanced nutrition for many children who would otherwise not receive this, more than 90% of African schools rely on wood fuel and charcoal for cooking for students and staff. In Kenya alone this results in more than 1.3 million metric tonnes of wood being consumed each year by schools and colleges. This has huge environmental impacts on forest reserves in the region, while the dangerous levels of air pollution from burning wood fuel in open stoves adversely affects the health of those learning and working in the school environment, and in the surrounding communities. This film tells the story of this major health and environmental challenge through the accounts of cooks, students, the head teachers of two schools, and those leading an exciting new initiative aiming to convert school kitchens to clean fuels right across East Africa. The video was produced by Dr Nigel Bruce from the University of Liverpool’s NIHR-funded CLEAN-Air (Africa) (CAA) Unit, a research programme collaborating with teams in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Cameroon. It is committed to providing the evidence needed to accelerate the urgently required transition to clean cooking in homes and institutions across the continent.