Understanding the impact of climate change on health and other sectors is important so that local authorities and governments can be ready to face the challenges. Translating understanding into action has been part of a number of ECEHH projects in recent years.

The Local Climate Adaptation Toolkit (LCAT) has been co-developed by a team from ECEHH with Cornwall Council and ThenTryThis to provide insights for local authorities into how climate is going to impact on their regions and how they can think about adaptation in the health context. This work was presented at COP26 in Glasgow and has attracted significant attention, as it fills a gap in giving local planners, councillors and civil society actors access to better information. The LCAT team is now partnering with the Turing Centre to further develop the tool.

Our work featured in the recent UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, highlighting the impacts of climate on health through different pathways. This includes:

• Drought and health – where ECEHH staff led on investigating the complex links between drought and health in the UK using narrative methods (link to paper: The health and well-being effects of drought: assessing multi-stakeholder perspectives through narratives from the UK | SpringerLink)
• The impact of weather on physical activity (link to The effects of meteorological conditions and daylight on nature-based recreational physical activity in England – ScienceDirect)
• Pollen exposures and the impact on asthma (Pollen exposure and hospitalization due to asthma exacerbations: daily time series in a European city | SpringerLink)

In the ongoing REGREEN project, we are working with local authorities to support their use of nature based solutions, including evaluating the contribution of green spaces to reducing urban heat.