Recreating heatwaves in the lab to help older people stay well at home

Homes in northern Sweden have long been designed to retain warmth through cold winters. During summer heatwaves, however, these homes can become difficult to keep cool. A new research project will investigate older people’s responses to heat.

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The project has received nearly SEK 9 million from Formas, the Swedish research council for sustainable development. It is led by Weizhuo Lu, professor and director of the Intelligent Human-Buildings Interaction Lab, IHBI.

In the IHBI, researchers use a climate chamber and virtual environments designed to look and feel like ordinary homes. This allows participants to feel as if they are at home, while researchers can carefully control the indoor climate.

How the body and brain respond

The lab is also equipped with physiological sensors and equipment for monitoring brain activity. Together with people’s own accounts of how they feel, the technology helps researchers investigate the links between indoor heat, physiological responses, stress, fatigue and mental well-being.

“The strength of our lab is that we can study the indoor environment and human responses together. Our equipment allows us to investigate how people experience heat and which adaptations make a meaningful difference to their well-being,” says Weizhuo Lu, who works at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics.

A home should remain a place where people can rest, recover and manage everyday life, even during a heatwave

The project brings together building research, psychology and neuroscience in the same experimental setting. By recreating and comparing indoor conditions, the researchers can gain a stronger basis for understanding the effects of heat and evaluating measures to reduce its impact.

Helping older people adapt at home

As many older people continue living in their own homes, adapting ordinary housing to a warmer climate is an important public health challenge. For older residents, heat can affect sleep, mood and the ability to cope with everyday life. The researchers will look in particular at differences in housing conditions, mobility, financial resources and social support, all of which influence people’s ability to respond to heat.

“A home should remain a place where people can rest, recover and manage everyday life, even during a heatwave. We want to provide advice that works in different homes and is realistic for people with different needs and resources,” says Weizhuo Lu.

The project focuses on northern Sweden, where homes have traditionally been designed to retain warmth through cold winters, with good insulation and energy-efficient building envelopes. This can make them more difficult to keep cool in summer.

The results will support practical guidance on measures such as solar shading and ventilation, as well as on everyday ways of managing indoor heat. The advice will be developed in dialogue with older people, relatives, senior citizens’ organisations and Umeå Municipality. It is intended both to help residents make informed choices and support municipalities and housing organisations in planning effective and accessible climate adaptation.