National Statistical

The ONS has been helping to establish global standards for official statistics on climate and health.  In March this year, the United Nations Statistical Commission decided to incorporate six new indicators developed in this project into the authoritative Global Set of Climate Change Related Indicators and Statistics.  Here Myer Glickman,  Head of Climate and Global Health at the Office for National Statistics, explains what has been involved and his hopes for what they will achieve.

At ONS we are proud to have reached the culmination of four years of work to measure the impacts of climate on people’s health.  These are new official statistics methods to provide evidence for this connection and help governments plan and monitor climate strategies.

Scientific studies have been advancing rapidly, enabling understanding of climate-related conditions: the risk of suicide arising from extreme temperatures, for example. But this research does not automatically translate into official statistics needed to provide evidence for decision makers across the world.

The Standards for Official Statistics on Climate-Health Interactions (or SOSCHI for short) project will enable countries to use the same methods of measurement to capture illnesses and deaths relating to climate, filling this important information gap and allowing for international comparisons.

We know how vital official statistics are in underpinning policy and decision making and allocation of funding by organisations; dealing with climate change, emergency relief and healthcare to recognise the connection between their remits and inform their policies and plans appropriately. This could range from recognising the threat of more people dying during periods of exceptionally hot weather, to increased rainfall giving rise to more cases of malaria.

So, over the past four years, we have been working to address this, setting a global team to develop a statistical framework of methods and tools.  We’ve been collaborating with colleagues in organisations as diverse as the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Research and Innovation Centre (AIMS RIC) Rwanda, the Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS) at the University of Ghana, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Cochrane Planetary Health Thematic Group (hosted at University of Alberta), with funding from Wellcome.

The SOSCHI project also engaged with the United Nations, World Health Organisation, and more than 100 leading experts worldwide, individually and in specialist advisory groups. Colleagues in government and health sector organisations in Ghana and Rwanda provided valuable support, ensuring relevance to national priorities.

The team researched a wide range of subjects relating to climate change and health including:

• waterborne diseases
• vector-borne diseases
• temperature-related health effects
• mental health
• health effects of air pollution
• airborne diseases
• health effects of extreme weather events (wildfires and flooding)
• undernutrition and food-borne diseases
• healthcare systems and facilities

We have published over 50 reports and technical papers based on the best scientific knowledge available and up-to-date statistical methods.  You can explore these at our UN-hosted website or the open document platform Zenodo.

The decision of the UN Statistical Commission to incorporate six of the SOSCHI indicators into the Global Set of Climate Change Related Indicators and Statistics means that these measures are now officially recommended for reporting by all countries.

The headline indicators approved are:

• Diarrhoea cases attributable to extreme temperatures and extreme rainfall
• Malaria cases attributable to extreme temperatures and extreme rainfall
• Mortality attributable to high and low temperatures
• Suicides attributable to extreme heat
• Mortality attributable to wildfire-related PM2.5
• Mortality attributable to short-term exposure to outdoor PM2.5

Our hope now is that analysts in National Statistical Offices, Public Health Institutes and other government and academic institutions across the world will begin to implement the statistics into their own production.  Our platform provides the information and tools to do this.

You can also read a summary of the whole project in The Framework Report, released today.

And SOSCHI? It will continue on a smaller scale, engaging with international organisations, expert forums and other countries to promote implementation of the indicators.