PURGE

Public health impacts in URban environments of Greenhouse gas Emissions reduction strategies

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The project will examine the health impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction policies in urban settings in Europe, China and India, using case studies of 3-4 large urban centres and three smaller urban centres. Sets of realistic interventions will be proposed, tailored to local needs, to meet published abatement goals for GHG Emissions for 2020, 2030 and 2050.

Mitigation actions will be defined in four main sectors: power generation/industry, household energy, transport and food and agriculture. The chief pathways by which such measures influence health will be described, and models developed to quantify changes in health-related ‘exposures’ and health behaviours. Models will include ones relating to outdoor air pollution, indoor air quality and temperature, physical activity, dietary intake, road injury risks and selected other exposures.

Integrated quantitative models of health impacts will be based on life table methods encompassing both mortality and morbidity outcomes modelled over 20 year time horizons. Where possible, exposure-response relationships will be based on review evidence published by the Comparative Risk Assessment initiative or systematic reviews. Uncertainties in model estimates will be characterized using a mathematical framework to quantify the influence of uncertainties in both model structure and parameter estimates. Particular attention will be given to economic assessments, both in terms of behavioural choices/uptake of various forms of mitigation measure (with new surveys to address evidence gaps), and in terms of health benefits and costs calculated from societal, health service and household perspectives. A decision analysis framework will be developed to compare different mitigation options.

Experts and user groups will be consulted to define the mitigation questions to be examined, and the results will be discussed in consultative workshops scheduled for the final months of the project.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

A research project has shown that policies that mitigate climate change will have a positive effect on the health of people living in urban areas.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Efforts to stem greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide are well short of what is required to prevent drastic climate change in the near future. One way to encourage the necessary policy decisions is to show the link between climate mitigation efforts and human health.

To achieve this, the EU-funded http://purge.lshtm.ac.uk/ (PURGE) (Public health impacts in urban environments of greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategies) project used modelling and economic analysis to predict the human health effects of climate mitigation policy.

The project used these approaches to conduct simulated case studies on eight Asian and European cities. The cities studied were London and Milton Keynes (UK), Belgrade and Nis (Serbia), Beijing and Wuxi (China), and Delhi and Vishakhapatnam (India).

PURGE found that policies to increase active travel (walking and cycling) while improving vehicle emissions would decrease GHG emissions and greatly improve health. Likewise, improving energy efficiency for housing will have the same dual effect.

Researchers also showed that comparatively modest changes to European diets could have an appreciable impact on GHG emissions. However, to achieve a decrease in GHG emissions greater than 30 to 40 % would require substantial changes to urban diets.

Finally, the project showed the importance for climate mitigation and health of the development of on renewable energy sources and nuclear power.

Project findings provide an additional motivation for policy action to mitigate climate change. The evidence that PURGE presents will be useful in arguments for said policy changes.