Consortium wins grant to explore climate change and possible risk to health

Bristol Health Partners is part of a consortium that will investigate the potential risk from a changing climate and extreme weather to people’s health across the city. The project, funded by Innovate UK and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), will combine the latest methods in economic valuation and systems modelling and explore the strategic level response to evidence and opportunities for minimising costs.

The project, which started in October and runs until September 2016, is led by independent research consultancy, Daniel Black & Associates (db+a), working in partnership with Bristol Health Partners, the University of Bristol, University of Bath and Bristol City Council. Advice on climate adaptation is provided by the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP).

This project builds on the success of the previous Innovate UK / NERC feasibility study (March 2014 – February 2015), carried out in partnership with the University of Manchester, which worked with large social housing provider, Aster Group, to value their exposure to flooding, heating and subsidence and to start exploring adaptation options. The key distinctions between the two projects are: the focus on population health (and associated data sets); and the exploration of multi-agency risk.

Dr Mike Yearworth, Reader in Engineering Systems in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol, is leading the systems modelling activity with key stakeholders and Dr Alistair Hunt at the University Bath is responsible for delivering the economic valuation model for the project.

David Relph, Director of Bristol Health Partners, said: “This is a genuinely innovative and exciting project. We are keen to work with the team to deliver this important evidence and explore with them how we as a consortium might best respond.”