A team of researchers is building computer models that predict how poor housing conditions will worsen people’s health as the climate changes, working directly with communities in Vietnam, Turkey, Ecuador, and the United States. This matters because where and how people live determines their exposure to climate-driven hazards such as heatwaves, flooding, and hurricanes. Communities that already suffer from substandard housing and poor air quality—often due to historical discrimination—will bear the heaviest burden as these events become more frequent. Current national models are too coarse to capture local conditions, so policymakers lack tools to anticipate which neighbourhoods face the greatest combined risk. If the project succeeds, local governments and housing organisations will gain a practical, community-tested method to project future health impacts under different climate scenarios. The models will link local sensor data—indoor and outdoor air quality monitors—to national datasets, enabling targeted interventions such as retrofitting homes or relocating vulnerable residents before disasters strike. The approach is designed to be replicable in other countries, offering a template for equitable climate adaptation planning worldwide.
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The ComDisp consortium aims to undertake community-centered research that develops a collaborative, iterative process for grassroots modeling of health disparities with predictive capability across climate change scenarios. We are responding to health disparities related to housing conditions in the USA, Vietnam, Turkey and Ecuador - with broad relevance in every global society - where living environments are shaped by historical and contemporary injustices. When assessing intersecting climate risk, where and how people live matters, and historically overburdened communities will continue to disproportionately accumulate risk if the root causes are not addressed. Five objectives will help us to achieve this aim: Identify and understand housing, air quality and respiratory health issues in each case Data collection, modeling and decision-making approach Link climate change models to housing, air quality and respiratory health issues Design a grassroots scenario planning process Explore and analyze housing and health issues under CC scenarios through interactive tools and resources Extending previous work to 3 new case studies The project end-users are populations who live in housing situations with high risk of climate change impacts. We are particularly focused on the elderly, children, low-income communities, and individuals that have pre-existing health conditions. In each case study location we will leverage existing partnerships with non-academic stakeholders to include local governments (land use, housing, public health), community health & housing organizations, and climate change action advocates. The LPI previously developed a unique agent-based model and deployed a network of indoor and outdoor air quality sensors to collect data in Florida, working with local community members in a participatory action research process. The ComDisp consortium proposes to expand this previous study to other geographies and adapt the model in Vietnam, Turkey, and Ecuador. We will combine spatial analyses of multiple environmental hazards that are impacted by climate change - in particular heat island effects, heatwaves, hurricanes and flooding - pertinent to cardiovascular and respiratory health disparities. The local models of housing and health that we develop across the consortium in USA, Vietnam, Turkey and Ecuador will be able to link to and augment national datasets and models, allowing us to not only project future localized climate change scenarios but to develop a strategy with affected communities to alter their present and future through science and action. About the team The ComDisp consortium brings together diverse international academic and practical perspectives and experiences - a team made up of natural and social scientists, engineers, and community members (see Part 16). The consortium includes a disciplinary mix appropriate for the scope of the project; including disaster studies, architecture, material science, communications, public health, immunology, urban planning, social work, biology, engineering, geology, physical geography and human geography. The investigators from the University of Florida (USA), Loughborough University (UK), Hanoi University of Civil Engineering (Vietnam), the University of Bergen (Norway) and Bursa Technical University (Turkey) will work closely with communities experiencing health disparities related to housing in Vietnam, Turkey and Ecuador.
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