Overview
The World Health Organisation has declared climate change as the single biggest health threat facing humanity, with the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Science Report concluding:
“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”1
Welsh Government has responded to the climate crisis with several key policies, including Net Zero Wales (2021-2025) and the Well-being of Future Generations (2015) Act, aimed at building a ‘stronger, greener, fairer’ Wales over the coming decades. Climate policies to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels may pose risks to certain sectors, but also offer an opportunity to advance policies that can transform society for the better. It is crucial over the next ‘decade of action’, Welsh Government has access to high quality data and evidence that can effectively identify and evaluate these transition risks and opportunities, and ensure funding is prioritised towards the most cost-effective climate solutions.
Our theme will work with Welsh Government and other stakeholders to identify priority areas and harness the potential of de-identified administrative data within SAIL; to generate evidence that can inform policy and help Wales achieve a fair and inclusive transition to net zero, where all of society and nature thrive.
Our research programme will focus on three pressing issues in Wales: health impacts of extreme weather events; climate change transition risks and opportunities; and associations between biodiversity, ecosystem resilience and health.
1 IPCC, 2022: Summary for Policymakers. 2022.
Priorities
Our research programme will focus on the health impacts of extreme weather events, climate change transition risks and opportunities (with a focus on active and sustainable travel) and associations between biodiversity, ecosystem resilience and health.
We will look at the socio-demographic and health characteristics of people living in high-risk flood areas, and how population composition has changed with time. We will also explore the short and long-term health and well-being risks of increasing temperatures in Wales, and the possibility of modelling these findings to inform future policy development.
We will help Welsh Government to monitor the transition risks and opportunities that may ensue from policies designed to decarbonise Wales, focusing specifically focusing on the ‘potential’ for active and sustainable travel in communities across Wales.
We have also identified several sources of ecosystem resilience/biodiversity data in Wales that could be linked to SAIL data to investigate: the socio-demographic characteristics of people living in the most/least biodiverse/ecosystem resilient areas in Wales; the new ‘biodiversity hypothesis’ and whether growing up in biodiverse environments reduces risk of allergies, asthma and other chronic inflammatory diseases.
Projects
Distances children live from school and the potential for active/sustainable travel among school aged children in Wales
This project will examine the distances children in Wales live from their attended and nearest schools to inform active and sustainable transport policies and interventions. We will link these distances to self-reported travel behaviours in the National Survey for Wales (NSW) and the School Health Research Network (SHRN) to define walkable and cyclable thresholds for primary and secondary school–aged children. Future work will incorporate environmental characteristics, such as traffic, the built environment, and safety, to develop a more realistic understanding of children’s ability to walk or cycle to school in Wales and the potential barriers they face.
Socio-demographic, health, educational and environment characteristics of high-, medium- and low- risk flood communities in Wales over time
This project will link open-source flood risk data at the household level to administrative, health and environmental data in the SAIL databank to explore the health and socio-demographic profiles of people living in low-, medium- and high-risk flood areas, and how these profiles have changed overtime.
Enhancing understanding of populations inequalities in Wales
This work will use existing and new health, demographic and administrative data to characterise the population of Wales into socio-economic, marginalised and vulnerable groups of individuals to aid future understanding of population inequalities in Wales.
Publications
Data Insight: Exploring the effects of hot weather on pregnancy and newborn health — the MAGENTA study
This report presents early findings and plans for the MAGENTA (Maternal And preGnancy hEalth aNd elevaTed heAt – https://magentaresearch.org/) project, a £2.2 million Wellcome Trust-funded research project led by Swansea University and partnered with the Kids’ Environment & Health Cohort at University College London. The overarching aim of this project is to provide evidence on whether exposure to higher temperatures during pregnancy is associated with adverse health outcomes for mother and baby.
Data Insight: Active travel to school for children in Wales: A data linkage project and exploratory analysis
Distance, gender and family affluence have been found to be the main factors influencing whether a child walks or cycles to school, according to new research carried out by the ADR Wales Climate Change team.