Building a picture of climate impacts on health

In February 2022, ONS began a four-year project, funded by Wellcome, to develop the first set of official metrics to measure the impact of climate change on health. This will unlock a wealth of new insight, giving countries greater ability to plan services and policies in the face of a range of climate health challenges. As the ONS publishes details of this new statistical framework, Myer Glickman explains the next steps in this important work.

Why should we measure it?

With reports of rising temperatures, declining air quality and natural disasters making headlines, the effect of climate change on human health is a serious and growing concern. As outlined in our previous blog, there is no recognised framework to directly measure the impacts of climate on health and this limits our understanding about how the two are linked. ONS's Standards for Official Statistics on Climate-Health Interactions (SOSCHI) project seeks to fill this evidence gap. Countries across the world will be able to use the same methods, adapt them to their geographic circumstances, and produce measures of the health burden their populations face.

Our new framework

We have now released the first version of our new climate health framework. The framework currently includes the following topics:

• Airborne diseases - cerebrospinal meningitis
• Heat and cold related mortality
• Extreme weather - wildfire smoke
• Malnutrition and foodborne disease
• Vector-borne diseases - malaria
• Mental health
• Water-borne diseases - diarrheal disease

Each of these topics is covered in an introduction paper looking at the health impact and outlining metrics for measuring that impact. As the project progresses, more topics will be added and the detailed methods will be provided to measure global impacts. We have also published a 'discovery report' setting out our approach so far, as well as a prototype of our online platform hosted by the UN Global Platform which will eventually host interactive indicator calculators.

A global effort

This has been and will continue to be a global project. We are pleased to be officially partnered with the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Rwanda and the Regional Institute of Population Studies (RIPS) at the University of Ghana, both of whom have helped us develop and test our climate metrics. We are also benefitting from a wealth of knowledge from leading climate experts at the Lancet Countdown, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Cochrane Planetary Health Working Group. The project is supported by the Ghana Statistical Service and the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda.

Listening to feedback

Our aim is to provide a globally recognised measure for how our health is affected by climate change, which will form part of the United Nations Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators. However, there is work to be done before we achieve this - and one important aspect is listening to feedback. We are inviting users and stakeholders to give feedback on the framework which will help us develop it further and make improvements. Comments on the work we have published so far can be made via [email protected].

As we go into the final year on the project, we will continue to consult with our global partners and work towards building a long-term solution to measuring the relationship between climate and health.