Beyond individual factors : a critical ethnographic account of urban residential fire risks, experiences, and responses in single-room occupancy (SRO) housing
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Medicine, Faculty of
department or school: Other UBC
department or school: Nursing, School of
department or school: Pediatrics, Department of
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: BMC Public Health. 2024 Aug 28;24(1):2343
contributor: B.C. Injury Research and Prevention Unit
rights copyright: The Author(s)
creator: Liao, Catherine
creator: Varcoe, Colleen, 1952-
creator: Brown, Helen
creator: Pike, Ian, 1958-
issued: 2025-03-04T23:33:26Z
issued: 2024-08-28
description: Background: Burn injuries are a significant public health concern, closely linked to housing conditions and socioeconomic status. Residents in socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods are at increased risk of exposure to hazards due to older and poorer housing conditions and limited access to fire protection measures. Individual behaviours such as substance use, smoking, and hoarding are often highlighted as primary causes of residential fires, overshadowing the broader socioeconomic and structural factors that also play a significant role in housing safety. This paper explores the correlation between inadequate housing conditions and heightened fire risks leading to burn injuries, focusing on the contextual factors shaping everyday urban fire risks, experiences, and responses of residents living in Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) housing in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) and staff working in the fire, health, housing (social and private), and non-profit sectors. Methods: As part of an ongoing ethnographic study, we partnered with the Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (VFRS) to conduct participant observations in private, non-profit, and government-owned SROs, modular homes, and a temporary shelter. This paper synthesizes insights from participant observations from the first author’s self-reflexive journals, including informal conversations with approximately fifty-nine individuals such as SRO tenants, SRO managers/caretakers, health workers, burn survivors, municipal staff, not-for-profit staff, and firefighters. Results: Urgent housing-related issues contributing to inequitable everyday urban fire risks were identified, such as structural deficiencies in SRO buildings and systems, inadequate waste management and storage, and inequitable approaches to addressing hoarding. Additionally, disparities in access to information and the interaction between interpersonal and structural stigmas were significant factors, underscoring the pressing need for intervention. Conc…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90458
note: R E S E A R C H Open Access© The Author(s) 2024. 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/licenses/by/4.0/.Liao et al. BMC Public Health (2024) 24:2343 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19866-zBMC Public Health*Correspondence:Catherine Liaocatherine.liao@ubc.caFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleAbstractBackground Burn injuries are a significant public health concern, closely linked to housing conditions and socioeconomic status. Residents in socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods are at increased risk of exposure to hazards due to older and poorer housing conditions and limited access to fire protection measures. Individual behaviours such as substance use, smoking, and hoarding are often highlighted as primary causes of residential fires, overshadowing the broader socioeconomic and structural factors that also play a significant role in housing safety. This paper explores the correlation between inadequate housing conditions and heightened fire risks leading to burn injuries, focusing on the contextual factors shaping everyday urban fire risks, experiences, and responses of residents living in Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) housing in Vancouver’s Downto…
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448162
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: BioMed Central
publisher DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-19866-z
rights: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
scholar level: Graduate
subject: Single-room occupancy
subject: Inadequate housing
subject: Fire risks
subject: Burn injuries
subject: Underserved communities
subject: Ethnographic design
subject: Participant observation
subject: Structural factors
subject: Inequities
subject: Injury policy and prevention
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90458