Summer heatwaves and cold snaps are already sending more people to UK hospitals, and this project will track exactly how temperature extremes trigger conditions from kidney failure to tick-borne disease. The problem is that current public health warnings are blunt instruments—they tell everyone to stay hydrated, but don't say which neighbourhoods, which homes, or which patients are most at risk. This consortium of climate scientists, health researchers, and the Met Office will build a national synthetic population model that overlays environmental data with demographic and socioeconomic information, allowing them to simulate how different interventions would affect different groups. If successful, the research could transform how the UK adapts its housing stock—for example, by quantifying the health benefits and costs of specific retrofit measures, or by showing where planting urban trees would most reduce heat-related deaths. The project will also link the UK Renal Registry's automated alert system to temperature data, enabling real-time detection of when acute kidney injury episodes coincide with heat extremes. This is applied, policy-facing research: the outputs are designed to inform the government's net zero strategies and local adaptation plans, not to generate fundamental scientific discoveries.
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There is growing recognition that ambient temperature and other climate factors can affect the health of the UK population via multiple pathways, ranging from direct impacts such as increased deaths and hospital admissions during a heat-wave, to indirect processes such as the role of climate factors in driving the spread of ticks and other vectors that can cause diseases. Understanding such impacts and developing solutions therefore requires multi-disciplinary expertise which the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) on Environmental Change and Health is uniquely placed to deliver since its long-standing programme of research and training is already contributing to improved understanding of the health impacts of climate change and other environmental challenges, the actions needed to protect UK public health, and the opportunities for improving health of policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This partnership between LSHTM, UKHSA, UCL, and the Met Office consists of members who have long been at the forefront of research into climate change and health, with expertise in health, environmental science, behavioural and social science, building science, climate change, health economics, insect biology, and mathematical modelling: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres-projects-groups/hpru-ech#welcome The aims of this new project led by the HPRU consortium plus additional climate scientists are to foster strong and enduring links between the climate and health science communities and to generate policy-relevant evidence on the full range of health impacts associated with climate factors that can inform adaptation and mitigation measures and enhance climate resilience of the UK population. The project objectives are: To develop and apply methods for improved detection of weather-related health impacts and to identify high-risk groups and health inequalities associated with climate exposures. To undertake a dedicated programme of work in the home, built and natural environments that will improve understanding of climate-related health impacts and the gains and risks associated with interventions in these settings. To develop a national synthetic population model incorporating environmental, demographic and socio-economic data with detailed spatial information that can be used to quantify the impacts of different environmental interventions on population health and health inequalities, which can inform local and national policies. The project responds to the call by assessing the impacts of climate variability on a range of health outcomes, including novel use of the UK Renal Registry's automated alert system which enables assessment of whether the timing of Acute Kidney Injury episodes coincide with temperature extremes. We will estimate future mortality and morbidity impacts under different global warming scenarios. We will evaluate the health benefits and economic costs associated with a range of adaptation strategies, including building design and retrofit measures in the housing sector, the impacts of future urbanisation trends on urban heat islands, and natural environment interventions such as the cooling potential of urban trees in enhancing population adaptation to climate change. We will quantify the health benefits of mitigation policies needed to achieve the Government's net zero targets. This ambitious project will also enhance research capacity between climate and health scientists by developing a programme of training courses and placement visits of health researchers to the Met Office. The HPRU's extensive stakeholder engagement and other knowledge mobilisation activities will ensure that research has maximum policy impact. The HPRU's dedicated public involvement and engagement group will inform research planning and dissemination of results.
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