PURGE

The overall project aim is to quantify the positive and negative impacts on health and well-being of greenhouse gas reduction strategies in urban areas of Europe, China and India, and to develop and present the evidence in ways that are most relevant to major policy decisions in such areas as energy, housing/built environment, transport, and food.

Specific objectives:

(1)           With the input of panels of experts, to define the critical policy choices for mitigation in selected settings in Europe, China and India, and the parameters within which those choices are constrained.

(2)          To delineate sets of specific realistic interventions, tailored to local needs, which meet the demanding abatement trajectories at several future time points (2020, 2030, 2050) as set out by the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in national or regional assessments.

(3)          To determine and describe the critical pathways by which such choices influence population health, encompassing both direct and indirect mechanisms.

(4)          To quantify the changes in health-affecting ‘exposures’ and health behaviours that are likely to accompany those policies and hence

(5)          To develop and implement integrated quantitative models of the health impacts (mortality and morbidity) associated with those policy choices.

(6)          To address, though evidence review and new surveys, important evidence gaps about the behaviour changes that are likely from selected mitigation measures, and about other forms of economic influence on patterns of energy consumption.

(7)          To determine the costs and benefits to health of the mitigation measures examined from societal, household and health service perspectives.

(8)          To examine the uncertainties in model estimates of health impacts and costs, using a mathematical framework to quantify the influence of both structural (model form) and parameter uncertainties, and hence

(9)          To develop and implement a generic decision analytical model to compare the different mitigation interventions based on pre-determined decision criteria in the context of uncertainty.

(10)        To examine the implications of such comparative evidence, specifically in relation to health-related costs and benefits, for policy decisions both locally and internationally.

(11)        To provide detailed commentary of the apparent trade-offs for health of policy choices in each of the sectors, the key areas of uncertainty, the needs for further research, and the range of further questions necessary for guiding major decisions about local, regional and global priorities for mitigation.

(12)        To disseminate the results of the work, and assess their utility to user communities, and to provide training to users through workshops.