Overview
From the Covid-19 pandemic to climate change and the cost of living, modern society is facing unprecedented challenges, the impacts of which will be felt by generations to come. To address currently identified and new emerging priority areas for government, ADR Wales has created a Major Societal Challenges work stream, which will monitor, evaluate and research the impacts of major societal challenges over time and across generations for the whole population.
Covid-19 will be the initial focus of this work stream, with an early focus on the Pandemic | Administrative Data Research (PAND|AR) project. PAND|AR will focus on the five harms approach, looking closely at both the direct and indirect harms arising from Covid-19 pandemic on individuals, services and inequalities at a population-scale, and pandemic recovery.
Priorities
Covid-19 will be the initial focus of this work stream, with an early focus on the Pandemic | Administrative Data Research (PAND|AR) project. PAND|AR will focus on the five harms approach, looking closely at both the direct and indirect harms arising from Covid-19 pandemic on individuals, services and inequalities at a population-scale, and pandemic recovery. We will study harms arising from infections, such as hospitalisations, reinfection rates and other adverse outcomes following an infection from Covid-19. Associated inequalities arising from the Covid-19 pandemic will be evaluated, including access to services or delays and any associated risks, along with the indirect harm of pressures on the health and social care system. We will look at harms arising from population-level health protection measures such as educational harm, psychological harm and isolation from shielding and other measures.
We will look at the economic harms, such as unemployment and reduced business income arising from Covid-19 directly and population control measures, like lockdowns. We will look at the harms arising from the way Covid-19 has exacerbated existing or introduced new inequalities in our society, such as geographic and spatial inequalities, intersectional disadvantage, education inequalities exacerbated by Covid-19 and economic vulnerability. We will evaluate potential interventions and national approaches to recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, including the vaccination programme, associated uptake, safety, waning and adverse events that may arise from vaccination, and any potential inequalities in access to vaccinations that should receive more targeted interventions. Potential benefits arising from these interventions will be considered too.
We plan to develop a series of research ready data assets (RRDAs) and reproducible research pipelines that will serve, longer-term, to monitor, evaluate and research the impacts of other major societal challenges that arise across the generations.
Projects
Publications
Data Insight: Staff-pupil Covid-19 infection pathways in schools in Wales
This Data Insight explores the likelihood of pupils and staff testing positive for Covid-19 when there has been a positive case among staff, pupils and their households. It uses anonymised data on all staff, pupils and associated household contacts in Wales to understand the likely transmission pathways into and through educational settings.
Report: Composition and characteristics of shielded households in July 2020
This is part of a series of analyses focusing on those on the shielded list during the Covid-19 pandemic in Wales has been published by ADR Wales researchers based within Welsh Government.
Report: Shielded patients’ access to private outdoor space in June 2020
This analysis used anonymised linked data to estimate access to private outdoor spaces in households with a shielded person throughout Wales.