I wonder if the frequency of going to the Sauna was tied to the frequency of going to gym to workout? Here in Seattle that is basically the only place you can go to find a sauna.
In analysis adjusted for age, alcohol consumption, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, smoking status, Type 2 diabetes, previous myocardial infarction, resting heart rate and serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, compared with men with only 1 sauna bathing session per week, the HR for dementia was 0.78 (95% CI: 0.57–1.06) for 2–3 sauna bathing sessions per week and 0.34 (95% CI: 0.16–0.71) for 4–7 sauna bathing sessions per week. The corresponding HRs for Alzheimer's disease were 0.80 (95% CI: 0.53–1.20) and 0.35 (95% CI: 0.14–0.90).
http://m.ageing.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/12/07/...
It's amazing if Finland has solved poverty to the level that every household can afford to set aside the space for a sauna and costs of running it.
In the UK heat poverty is a widespread problem due to the costs of heating fuels. Presumably saunas are being run from geothermal sources to make it cheap enough??
I'm assuming saunas are cupboard sized, is that accurate or are all these homes dedicating a full room of space?
Municipal facilities (swimming halls with saunas etc) are charged, probably about 4 euros per visit, with discounts for students and elderly.
The saunas people have in their homes these days are typically electric. Electricity prices are roughly the same, perhaps a bit less than UK - an hour of sauna with 4kw stove would probably cost around 0.5 euros in electricity. Some apartment blocks have shared saunas you can book for free, some have small saunas in each apartment. In detached houses you typically get a bit larger saunas.
In general access to saunas is widely available for everyone regardless of socioeconomic status, and there is less economic inequality in general compared to the UK.
Heating is a separate topic but I'll reply briefly - majority of housing in Finland is heated with district heating, rather than individual gas boilers in each house, like in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating#Finland
As a result, heating tends to be cheaper for consumers compared to the UK. Also, Finnish housing tends to be much better insulated than housing in the UK (because of colder winters).
Outside cities, where population is sparse, people heat their houses with electricity/wood/oil/geothermal - with many new builds now opting for geothermal.
See http://energia.fi/files/799/Lu_Kostama_Mikkeli.pdf slide 10.
And saunas are heated with electricity in towns, although a few old public facilities still run on wood stoves, as well as private saunas of those who like the "pure" feeling (such as myself).
Couple that with the higher housing costs associated with far higher population density (16 per km^2 in Finland vs. 255 per km^2 in the UK) and it seems less weird.
I would imagine that he cost of the heating fuels is pretty much the same all over Europe. I think the difference is that in the Nordic countries people seem to insulate their houses better, like using double or even triple glasses in windows to reduce heat waste.
UK has 3.16 million hectares of woodland[1], Finland has 23 million hectares[2] of forest. UK population is 65 million, Finland has 5 million. [Wikipedia]
With 7 times more trees potentially providing fuel for 1/13th as many people, shouldn't it work out noticably cheaper?
Gas, oil, electricity, district heating or geothermal heat are used. Prices will be roughly similar, where the supply exists.
In the context of "It's amazing if Finland has solved poverty to the level that every household can afford to set aside the space for a sauna and costs of running it.", and rural areas tend to be poorer than city areas, discussing wood as fuel for said saunas seems relevant.
If you live in an apartment building, not every unit has a sauna--there is one shared across several units. If you live in a detached house, having a small sauna doesn't take up much space, and since it's so small and only used for an hour a day (if that), it's cheap to heat.
> In the UK heat poverty is a widespread problem due to the costs of heating fuels.
Based on my experiences in the UK, it's not heating fuel costs that's the problem, it's the sheer ubiquity of poorly insulated and air-sealed brick (and in Scotland, stone) houses with leaky single-pane sash windows.
Since this crappy cold weather hit I've found myself going to the gym nonstop just to dip in the jacuzzi... I don't know why most apartments in the PNW seem to not have one, maybe people up here don't like to swim as much as people in warmer climates?