Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Preface: This essay by Dr. Steven Dodd, a Research Associate at Lancaster University, UK, is one of ScientifyResearch’s inaugural Climate & Health Science Communication Award entries.
Introduction
Consider these quotations from victims of flooding in the UK:
“I became a bit obsessed with river levels… I started to look at this information that I’d never really paid any attention to ever before, because I think that’s part of my way of dealing with something like that.”
“The horrible thing is I don’t feel safe over here anymore … In your house, you should be able to come in and feel safe, but I don’t feel like that anymore … you think that if it has happened once, it can happen again.”
These may feel like poignant examples of the distress experienced by flood victims, but could they also serve as useful research evidence? Drawing on a recent synthesis of qualitative data about the health risks of climate change in the UK, I suggest that qualitative data of this sort are often overlooked in research on how societies adapt to climate change, which tends to prioritise large-scale data over first-hand experience. This neglects the value qualitative evidence has in uncovering the details of how social, cultural, and political factors combine to shape communities’ unique experiences of extreme weather. Far from being merely dramatic anecdotes, analysis of these data can create context-sensitive and multifaceted representations of the diverse factors at work within a locality, including manifestations of broader patterns of social power apparent in the uneven health impacts of extreme weather on various populations.
Qualitative Evidence in Action: A Qualitative Synthesis of UK Literature on Health Impacts of Climate Change
Our qualitative literature review sought to present the evidence from the UK on people’s lived experience of the health impacts of climate change and associated extreme weather. Finding eight relevant studies, the review shows a range of ways in which climate change is already having significant impacts on individuals’ lived experiences of health and health inequalities in the UK. Included data show how extreme weather events have profound impacts on mental health, including challenges to self-identity through flooding and deep feelings of insecurity from the threat of it recurring. In a manner characteristic of qualitative evidence, analysis of the data brought to the fore how individual impacts were shaped by the interaction of institutional support, community dynamics, and personal agency. Strong institutional support boosted people’s confidence in managing their recovery, while a lack of it led to feelings of helplessness and delayed their ability to move forward. Community support often grew after extreme weather as community bonds strengthened, but divisions could also arise from perceived inequities in institutional support. Social power dynamics were evident in gender inequalities, the exercise of state power, and pre-existing vulnerabilities.
Our analysis of these factors conceives of them as an ecological and web-like totality and does not artificially bracket out considerations such as social power, community dynamics, and the inter-relation of institutional action, community cohesion and individual agency. This analysis of qualitative data reminds us that the health impacts of extreme weather events are not just linked to natural and individual-level causes and are just as much social, political and community level processes.
Opportunities for Local Government to use Qualitative Evidence in Climate and Health Policy
While the findings above may seem interesting, some might question their practical value. However, there is a strong case to be made that locally-sensitive qualitative findings, of the sort described above, can increase the extent to which local government adaptation policy is aligned with the vulnerabilities and needs of local communities. In the UK, this is significant because local authorities are well placed to take action on the health risks of climate change because of their influence over a range of relevant areas such as public health, housing, planning, and environmental risks such as flooding and economic development.
To enact this recommendation for local government to draw on the expertise of their communities through qualitative research, ongoing efforts should be made to regularly collect data from local people, facilitating a greater degree of influence for local communities over policies such as plans for extreme weather events. Particular attention should be paid to both listening to and prioritising the needs of those most affected, and those liable to be marginalised from the usual consultation processes. In support of this view, the UK’s independent, statutory body the Climate Change Committee has argued that ‘a coherent public engagement strategy on climate action is long overdue’ and that ‘deliberative processes should be considered for navigating challenging policy decisions’ [1]. Taking this approach could enable local government to build risk profiles of their areas informed by local intelligence, increasing organisational awareness of local area characteristics, and potentially acting as a corrective to top-down initiatives directed from central government.
Conclusion
It is clear that local and highly contextual qualitative evidence can be valuable for local government and others seeking to understand health risks from climate change in their locality. This type of data may yield insights that can be overlooked by larger scale risk prediction tools that base forecasts on factors such as topography or climate. Better long-term policies, especially at the local level, may come about through adopting this context-sensitive and inclusive approach, increasing the role of qualitative evidence in local decision making and the level of community engagement in the policy process. Because the policies that result are more likely to reflect community priorities, more equitable, place-based protections for communities may result. Currently, top-down policies, uninformed by knowledge of local particularities, may fail to meet the needs of many communities, and could increase health inequalities and alienate parts of the local population.
Reference
[1] Climate Change Committee. Progress in adapting to climate change – 2023 Report to Parliament. 2023.
About the original research
This essay is based on original research published in SSM – Qualitative Research in Health in 2024: Health impacts of climate change in the UK: A qualitative synthesis detailing the conjuncture of social structure, extreme weather, and mental health by Dr. Steven Dodd and colleagues.
About the author
Dr. Steven Dodd is a public health researcher at Lancaster University in the UK, working on climate change, mental health, and health inequalities. He employs systematic reviews, qualitative methods, and realist evaluation principles to explore the factors that shape health outcomes.
About the Funder
The original publication was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (Award ID: NIHR150730).
