Climate Change and Health
Our Climate Change and Health Community brings together researchers from across UCL whose work focuses on understanding the links between climate change and human health.
Get involved | Meet our community leads | Our activities | Case Studies | Podcasts and events
About Us
Climate change threatens to reverse years of progress in public health, undermining the foundations of good health through a range of direct and indirect impacts. Extreme and slow-onset weather events such as heatwaves, severe floods, storms, droughts, sea level rise and temperature increase, are increasing the risk of communicable and non-communicable diseases, resulting in increased death, illness, injury, and deteriorating mental health.
Climate change has severe consequences for the environmental and socioeconomic conditions on which good health depends. Its health impacts are already being felt by populations all around the world, deteriorating their water and food security, sanitation, access to health care, livelihoods, housing conditions, and social support networks. Vulnerable groups in every country are disproportionately affected, such as those from low-income communities, ethnic minorities, migrants, women, children, the elderly, and those with pre-existing health conditions. This exacerbates existing inequalities and places these populations at higher risk.
The UCL Health of the Public Climate Change and Health Community is a joint venture between UCL Health of the Public and the UCL Grand Challenges, open to everyone from across UCL, including those working in disciplines such as the sciences (life, biomedical, physical, population, social, historical), engineering, the built environment, law, education, arts and humanities.
Building on UCL’s unique interdisciplinary and rich academic community, it seeks to act as a catalyst for cross-disciplinary innovation to explore how the indirect and direct impacts of climate change shape human health and wellbeing, explore solutions to protect the health of populations across the world in the face of a changing climate, and develop innovative findings that help maximise the health benefits of actions to tackle climate change.
Our network
We are connected to a range of wider initiatives related to Climate Change and Health both within UCL and outside:
- UCL Grand Challenge of Climate Crisis
- Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change
- UCL Anthropocene
- UCL Climate Hub
Get involved
Join our Climate Change and Health Community Teams site to get regular updates on the latest climate change and health news, events and funding opportunities. Please note you must be a UCL researcher or student to sign-up as this is an internal network.
Join Climate Change and Health Teams site
Meet our community co-leads
Dr Marina Romanello
Marina is a research fellow at the Institute for Global Health and research director for the Lancet Countdown, a research collaboration bringing together over 120 researchers from around the world to track the health impacts of climate change and the health implications of the world’s response.
Dr Lakshmi Priya Rajendran
Lakshmi is a lecturer in Environmental and Spatial Equity and Co-director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Her teaching and research explore social and spatial justice in cities and how it is critical within the discourse of planning and designing inclusive urban futures.
Our activities
- Climate and Health Coffee Mornings
Researchers are encouraged to present their ongoing or completed work related to climate change and health in an informal and interdisciplinary setting. Researchers share their ideas, findings, methodologies, and challenges, fostering feedback and collaboration. - Climate and Health Meetings:
Regular community meetings that bring together researchers from various disciplines. These meetings can serve as a forum for sharing updates, discussing ongoing projects, and fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary dialogue.
Case studies
- Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change
- CUSHH: Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health
- HEROIC: Health and Economic impacts of Reducing Overheating in Cities
- People and Nature Lab
Events
Upcoming events
Join our Climate Change and Health Community Teams Site to receive regular updates on the latest climate change and health events.
Past events
UCL Climate Cuppa | June 2024
Organised in collaboration with the UCL Climate Hub, and, in recognition of International Wellbeing Week, this networking event focussed on researcher wellbeing, with talks from UCL wellbeing and UCL academics researching the interface between climate and mental health.
- Climate change and health coffee morning | Oct 2023
The new Climate Change and Health Community organised an informal, in-person coffee morning, where researchers from different disciplines came together to network.
Speakers: Dr Marina Romanello (UCL Climate Change and Health Community Co-Lead) and Dr Clare Heaviside (NERC Research Fellow, Bartlett School Env, Energy & Resources). - Public Health Voices: Urban Health and Climate Change: What can our city tell us about our health?
Watch this webinar to hear from urban health and climate change experts as they explore how urban characteristics can influence health and disease in the urban context.
Speakers: Prof David Osrin (Institute for Global Health), Dr Marina Romanello (Institute for Global Health), Dr Helen Pineo (Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering) and Vicky Hobart (Greater London Authority).
- UCL Health of the Public Annual Symposium: Improving health for all, beyond disciplinary borders - Session 3: Tackling climate change and human health impacts
Watch session 3 recording from our annual symposium to hear from leading experts in climate change and health, as they discuss what needs to be done to improve health for all.
Chair: Prof Delanjathan Devakumar (Institute for Global Health). Speakers: Prof Kate Jones (UCL Division of Biosciences), Maria Walawender (The Lancet Countdown), Dr Clare Heaviside (UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering), Isabel Oliver (UK Health Security Agency).
Featured Podcast
What does climate change have to do with public health?
Hosts Xand and Rochelle are joined by Dominique Palmer - dedicated climate activist, organiser within the UK Student Climate Network and one of Forbes 100 Top UK Environmentalists - and Prof Paul Ekins OBE - Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy and Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources - to explore how the climate is disrupting public health.