THERM-UK is a four-year inter-disciplinary research project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) that will quantify the health benefits from reducing heat exposures through public health, housing policy and nature based solutions.
The THERM-UK research programme will develop climate metrics, epidemiological methods and economic modelling to develop decision tools to reduce the impact of heat on vulnerable individuals.
We are a research consortium with expertise in health modelling, epidemiology, thermophysiology, economics, climate services, ecosystem modelling, and building physics. Our team is led by Professor Shakoor Hajat at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with the University of Leeds, University of Exeter, University College London, Oxford Brookes University and the Met Office.
We work closely with partners key stakeholders in managing heat risks. including the Greater London Authority, House Learning and Improvement Network, and Forest Research.
To ensure that our research is useful and acceptable we have a commitment to public involvement and engagement, we are working with the PLANET panel. This is a national panel of persons from a range of backgrounds who we meet with regularly to discuss our research.
LSHTM
- Shakoor Hajat, Professor of Global Environmental Health (Principle Investigator)
- Sari Kovats, Associate Professor
- James Milner, Associate Professor
- Peninah Murage, Assistant Professor
- Hannah Marshall, Research Fellow
- Chee Yap Chung, Research Fellow
- Luis Baptista Mieiro, Research Degree Student
- Yolanda Fernandez, Project Coordinator
University of Leeds
- Cathryn Birch, Professor in Meteorology and Climate
- Carly Reddington, Research Fellow
University College London
- Mike Davies, Professor of Building Physics and Environment
- Anna Mavrogianni, Professor of Sustainable, Healthy and Equitable Built Environment
- Andrew Ibbetson, Research Fellow in Indoor Environmental Modelling
- Cheng Cui, Research Fellow in Indoor Environmental Modelling
Oxford Brookes University
- Rajat Gupta, Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Climate Change
- Yuanhong Zhao, Research Associate in Architecture and Climate Change
University of Exeter
- Richard Betts, Professor
- Peter Cook, Researcher
Met Office
- Christophe Sarran, Senior Health Research Scientist
- Lewis Ireland, Senior Scientist
- Who is most at risk from increasing heat?
We will develop new methods for characterization of key vulnerabilities, high-risk groups and health inequalities for the UK population. We will use routine health data to better understand the impacts of heat on morbidity, health service use and wellbeing. We will develop better models to understand the future impacts of heat on health due to climate change.
- Interventions to reduce heat impacts: costs and benefits
We will develop methods and tools to understand the national and local health gains and risks associated with interventions in the housing, including implications for building design/retrofit and regulation. We will produce evidence to protect the wellbeing of older persons and other high risk groups. We will quantify the benefits of nature-based solutions and spatial planning to reduce health burdens.
- Estimating health burdens attributable to heat under a range of policies
We will develop a national synthetic population model using high resolution environmental, population and socioeconomic data to quantify health burdens from heat and cold. The model will be used to compare the benefits of different policies for health costs and for inequalities. The model will be extended to promote opportunities for health improvement through climate policies in the transport, housing and planning sectors.