Climate change and health in urban areas - an integrated methodology

摘要

This paper is designed to set out the context and methodology for the remainder of the symposium, of research being carried out by the EU FP7 funded URGENCHE project, investigating the impacts on health and wellbeing of climate change causing greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction policies. The symposium aims to report findings at a very practical scale - that of cities. In fitting with the conference theme bridging north, east, south and west, our project work is in collaboration with five European partner cities (Kuopio, Finland; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Stuttgart, Germany; Basel, Switzerland and Thessaloniki, Greece) carefully chosen to represent a good north-south and east-west range, with the addition of two cities in China (Xi'an and Suzhou). Our speakers are drawn from both research active and city policy backgrounds. The project explores themes on energy supply and demand, housing and transport. In terms of health, the project focuses on non-infectious health outcomes -including respiratory and cardio-vascular health, but also on positive health outcomes such as wellbeing as potential co-benefits of GHG reduction policies. Our GIS-based methodology takes into account the advances made in integrated environment and health assessment in a large range of studies in Europe over recent years. The methodology considers the impact on human health and well-being of GHG policies, which may be the result of changes in exposure patterns of the urban population to environmental contaminants such as ambient and indoor air pollution, as well as changes in housing, workplaces, transport, lifestyles and utilisation of urban green space. Specific and real city-level GHG policies have been evaluated for their health and wellbeing impact on the cities' populations.