THERM-UK: Developing solutions for temperature-related health impacts in the UK.

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) requires access to the NHS England Data for the purpose of THERM-UK

THERM-UK: Developing solutions for temperature-related health impacts in the UK.

THERM-UK project is designed to quantify the health benefits of reducing heat exposure through various interventions, including public health measures, housing policies, and nature-based solutions

NHS England data will be used to;

- Quantify health risks from climate exposures (heat, cold, air pollution, infectious diseases).

No data will flow to NHS England for the purposes of this Data Sharing Agreement (DSA).

NHS England will provide access to the relevant records from the Hospital Episode Statistics (APC and A&E), Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) datasets LSHTM. The Data will

Contain no direct identifying data items. The Data will be pseudonymised and individuals cannot be reidentified through linkage with other data in the possession of the recipient.

The Data will not be transferred to any other location.

The Data will be stored on servers at LSHTM.

The Data will be accessed by authorised personnel via remote access.

The Controller(s) must confirm and provide evidence upon audit by NHS England that access via any remote device complies with the data security obligations within this DSA and the Data Sharing Framework Contract.

For remote access:

- Remote access will only be from secure locations situated within the territory of use (as further restricted elsewhere within the DSA if so done) stated within this DSA.

- Access controls granting users the minimum level of access required are in place.

- Remote access is only via secure connections (e.g., VPNs or secure protocols) to protect data.

- Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for remote access.

- Device security, including up-to-date software and operating systems, antivirus software, and enabled firewalls are utilised for the remote access.

- All remote access is undertaken within the scope of the organisation’s DSPT (or other security arrangements as per this DSA) and complies with the organisation’s remote access policy.

The above applies in addition to any condition set out elsewhere within the DSA (e.g. who may carry out processing, and for what purpose).

Remote processing will be from secure locations within England and Wales.

Access is restricted to employees of LSHTM who have authorisation from the chief Investigator.

All personnel accessing the Data have been appropriately trained in data protection and confidentiality.

There will be no requirement and no attempt to reidentify individuals when using the Data.

The Data will be linked at person record level with climate data obtained from the Met Office. The climate data includes daily temperature (daily max, min, mean) and daily relative humidity. Metrics such as daily Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) which is based on a number of weather factors (temp, humidity, windspeed) will also be considered.

LSHTM will use the linked data to at LSOA level to assess daily counts of health events in relation to daily fluctuations in the weather in order to quantify key vulnerabilities associated with a range of climate exposures, including the co-occurrence of multiple climate hazards.

The expected outputs of the processing will be:

- A report of findings in academic journals, conferences, and stakeholder and PPIE workshops.

- Development of an open-access online platform to share study results, methodologies, online tools, and digital outputs such as statistical code and detailed examples of their application.The online platform will provide high-level study results and guidelines/recommendations for policymakers on health protection, adaptation strategies, and multi-sectoral preparedness. For researchers, the platform will share processed climate data and computer software code for analysis. No health data, either individual or aggregated, will be made available on the platform.

The outputs will be communicated to relevant recipients through the following disseminations channels:

- Journals

- Workshops involving the stakeholders and the PPIE group.

- Social media

- Open-source frameworks for data visualisation

- Briefing documents provided by the dedicated knowledge work-package group

Outputs will be disseminated throughout the lifetime of the project. There will be a stakeholder workshop and associated report at the end of the project.

The findings of this research study are expected to contribute to evidence-based decision-making for police makers, local decision makers such as Doctors, and patients to inform best practice to improve care in hospitals during heat-waves and will inform cooling strategies in care homes and other social care settings.

The outputs will inform public and patient guidance on effective heat protection during hot weather and improving climate resilience of the UK population.

It is hoped that through publication of findings in appropriate media, the findings of this research will add to the body of evidence that is considered by the bodies, organisations and individual care practitioners charged with making policy decisions for or within the NHS or treatment decisions to mitigate the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on public health.

The use of the data could:

- help the system to better understand the health and care needs of populations.

- provide a mechanism for checking the quality of care. This could include identifying areas of good practice to learn from, or areas of poorer practice which need to be addressed.

- support knowledge creation or exploratory research (and the innovations and developments that might result from that exploratory work).

- characterise the current sensitivity of the UK population to climate exposures

- the modelled climate-health relationships will be used to estimate future health burdens under climate change scenarios. This information is necessary to ensure that health is considered when new climate change adaption and mitigation policies for the UK are being developed.

Yielded Benefits is not a requirement for new applications.