Standards for official statistics on climate-health interactions

This proposal is for a collaboration between the Office for National Statistics (with the UK Health Security Agency and the Cochrane Climate-Health Working Group) and two national statistical institutes in the African region, to develop a transparent and globally generalisable framework and technical platform for official statistics on climate change, environment and health, and a set of statistical methods to better estimate climate-related health risk using real world data sources, including modelling local-level impacts. By addressing the current lack of harmonised approaches, developing new methods in close partnership with LMICs and building capability, the project will advance global research on climate and health, help to address gaps in the knowledge base and support national monitoring and evidence-based policy. Users of the outputs will include government and NGO decision-makers who will be able to access information to guide interventions in clearer, more comprehensive and more actionable forms; producers of official statistics, especially in LMICs, whose ability to monitor effects of climate change will be increased by provision of practical, coherent standards and open source tools; and producers and consumers of climate change research who will benefit from faster study development based on shared approaches and more consistent ‘language’ for systematic communication.