Built Infrastructure for Older People in Conditions of Climate Change (BIOPICCC)

卫生和社会保健系统及其基础设施的运作可能受到气候变化的影响，特别是洪水、热浪和风暴等与天气有关的灾害日益频繁和严重。最近经历的极端气候事件对老年人的健康产生了重大影响。65岁以上的人在英国总人口中所占的比例越来越大。因此，我们面临着一个重大挑战，即如何使基础设施适应气候变化的影响，这些基础设施对为老年人服务的保健和社会系统至关重要。本项目将重点关注这一挑战。该项目的目的是制定一种方法，以便在2050年之前选择有效的适应战略，以确保支持老年人（即65岁及以上的人）福祉的基础设施以及保健和社会保健系统能够充分抵御气候变化的有害影响。这将通过利益相关者的积极参与和案例研究来实现。这个问题很复杂，涉及气候变化、社会人口趋势和基础设施性能，因此这项研究将由杜伦大学和赫瑞瓦特大学的一个多学科团队进行，结合工程、气候建模、健康和医疗保健研究方面的专业知识以及澳大利亚纽卡斯尔大学的专业知识。工作方案将分为五个阶段：第一阶段-确定受气候变化相关危害影响最大的地区；第二阶段-在城市和农村环境中确定老年人高度集中和一系列社会经济条件的研究社区；第三阶段-确定选定研究地点卫生和社会保健系统的关键要素和已建成的基础设施；第四阶段-确定设计和管理解决方案，包括对其生命周期成本进行概率评估，以提高卫生/社会保健系统和相关基础设施的复原力；第5阶段——传播：关于适应战略、地方能力建设和风险缓解战略的知识交流。我们还将利用代表各种利益相关者群体的广泛国际顾问网络。通过特别关注对老年人重要的基础设施，考虑农村和城市环境，并将利益相关者作为研究的参与者和结果的用户，我们的项目补充和扩展了最近由ESRC和EPSRC资助的其他关于气候变化影响的研究。我们的目标是在地方、国家和国际上以无障碍格式向主要举报人、利益攸关方和国际专家传播我们的研究成果。虽然我们的实际建议将在我们的研究领域具有当地相关性，但将开发的方法是通用的，可以应用于英国其他确定的领域，在那里可能适用类似的条件。我们制定的战略的方法和一般方面也将与规划和政策以及关于风险的社会和物理决定因素的学术辩论具有国际相关性。

SummaryThe functioning of health and social care systems and infrastructures supporting them is likely to be influenced by climate change, especially increasing frequency and severity of weather-related hazards such as floods, heat waves and storms. Recent experience of extreme climatic events had significant repercussions for health of older people. People aged over 65 years comprise a growing proportion of the total population in the UK. Thus we face a major challenge concerning how to adapt infrastructures, essential for health and social systems serving the older age group, to impacts of a changing climate. This project will focus on this challenge. The project is aimed to develop a methodology for selecting efficient adaptation strategies during the period up to 2050 to ensure that the infrastructures and health and social care systems supporting well-being of older people (i.e., those aged 65 and over) will be sufficiently resilient to withstand harmful impacts of climate change. This will be achieved with active engagement of stakeholders and demonstrated through case studies. The problem is complex involving climate change, socio-demographic trends, and infrastructure performance, therefore the research will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team from Durham University and Heriot Watt University, combining expertise in engineering, climate modelling, and health and health care research and expertise from University of Newcastle, Australia. The programme of work will be divided into five stages:Stage 1 - Identification of areas most at risk from climate change related hazards;Stage 2 - Identification of study communities with high concentrations of older people and a range of socio-economic conditions, in urban and rural settings;Stage 3 - Identification of key elements of health and social care systems and built infrastructures in selected study sites;Stage 4 - Identification of design and management solutions including a probabilistic evaluation of their life-cycle costs to improve resilience of health/social care systems and related infrastructures; andStage 5 - Dissemination: knowledge exchange on adaptation strategies, building local capacity and risk mitigation strategies.We will also draw on an extensive international network of advisors representing a wide variety of stakeholder groups. By focusing especially on infrastructure that is important for older people, considering rural as well as urban settings, and involving stakeholders as participants in the research as well as users of the results, our project complements and extends other recent studies on impacts of climate change funded by ESRC and EPSRC. We will aim for local, national and international dissemination of our research findings, in accessible formats, to key informants, stakeholders, and international experts. Although our practical recommendations will have local relevance in our study areas, the methodology which will be developed is general and can be applied to other identified areas across the UK, where similar conditions may apply. The approach and general aspects of the strategies we develop will also have international relevance to for planning and policy and for academic debates about the social and physical determinants of risk.