Housing Retrofit Need Index (HRNI)

Summary

The Housing Retrofit Need Index (HRNI) is a composite measure of neighbourhood need for housing energy retrofits for each Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA) in England. It integrates housing energy inefficiency, income deprivation and a health vulnerability domain (long-term condition prevalence and emergency admissions relevant to poor housing conditions) into a single prioritisation score (2022 snapshot).

Technical description

Component indicators are harmonised to LSOA geography and, where required, missing values are imputed using within-local-authority means and extreme values winsorised. Health vulnerability is constructed as a weighted mean of selected health indicators (weights normalised from Rodgers et al., 2018). The overall HRNI is computed using a weighted-product (multiplicative) formulation: EPC≤D% × IMD income score/rate × health vulnerability. Standardised (z-score), relative-index (x/mean(x)) and rank outputs are provided.