Barlow, C.F.Daniel, L.Bentley, R.Baker, E.2023-08-082023-08-082023Journal of Public Health Policy, 2023; 44(3):370-3850197-58971745-655Xhttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/139098Published online: 29 July 2023Researchers across disciplines are increasing attention to cold housing environments. Public health, environmental and social sciences, architecture, and engineering each define and measure cold housing environments differently. Lack of standardisation hinders our ability to combine evidence, determine prevalence, understand who is most at risk––and to formulate policy responses. We conducted a systematic, cross-disciplinary review of literature to document the measures used. We examined benefits and limitations of each approach and propose a conceptualisation of cold housing: where temperature is too low to support optimal health and wellbeing of inhabitants, measured using one or a combination of economic, ‘objective’, or subjective approaches. More accurate data on home temperatures for all population groups, combined with an understanding of factors leading to cold homes, will enable appropriate policy response to reduce adverse health effects and costs. Policies targeting better building standards and energy subsidies both improve temperature conditions in housing environments.en© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licen ses/by/4.0/.Building conditions; Cold temperature; Housing; Economic policy; Public healthJournal article10.1057/s41271-023-00431-82023-08-08651698Barlow, C.F. [0000-0001-7063-295X]Daniel, L. [0000-0001-9549-8515]Baker, E. [0000-0002-9390-0491]