Oxfordshire County Council implemented a Better Housing, Better Health (BHBH) service where residents get a home visit from a specialist advisor about home energy saving instead of just telephone support. Engaged by the council, we helped to find out if this additional service is providing value and health improvement.
Objective
What we did
We used three different analytical methodologies:
- Residents using the service were provided with health questionnaires before and after the home advice. A comparative analysis of those questionnaires was undertaken.
- A matched cohort analysis was conducted. This linked the NEF data to healthcare data and was split into three cohorts. Those using the BHBH+ service, those just using the telephone service and a control cohort not using any service. These were compared looking at differences in health outcomes.
- A retrospective analysis of the health of the service users was undertaken using linked NEF and healthcare data. This provided a baseline for the health of the cohort population.
Activity
Communications and engagement
Population health analytics
Provided a baseline for the health of the cohort population via a retrospective analysis of the health of the service users.
Data-driven decision-making
Using linked data and survey results to evaluate the value provided through the BHBH+ home visit initiative.
Outcome
The study is still ongoing, so full results are not yet available. Initial indications from the preliminary report of the outcomes from the questionnaire show that the service has improved the self-reported health of this cohort. Permission has recently been granted to link the NEF data to healthcare data.
It is too soon to draw any definitive conclusion on the results. Early indications show that investment in the BHBH+ service has positive health outcomes.
