Standards for official statistics on climate-health interactions

Overview

In this four-year project supported by Wellcome, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is working alongside global partners to develop a transparent and globally usable framework and technical platform for official statistics on climate change, environment, and health.

About the project

The Standards for Official Statistics on Climate-Health Interactions (SOSCHI) project is a four-year (2022 to 2026) collaboration between the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Research and Innovation Centre (AIMS RIC) Rwanda, the Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS) at the University of Ghana, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Cochrane Planetary Health Thematic Group (hosted at University of Alberta). We have also worked with the UN Global Platform to develop innovative solutions for sharing climate health metrics. The project is financially supported by Wellcome.

The aim is to develop a transparent and globally usable framework and platform for official statistics on climate and health. This involves developing a set of statistical methods to better estimate climate-related health risks using real-world data sources, including modelling sub-national impacts. This project has been developed jointly with our Africa-based research partners, integrating the generalisable framework with their national context, while promoting long-term capacity development. It also aims to stimulate research in the climate and health field to address areas where evidence is so far lacking.

There are six priority topics, for which methods and code have been completed and published:

waterborne diseases
vector-borne diseases
temperature-related health effects
mental health
health effects of air pollution
health effects of wildfires

Additional topics included in the framework, but with limited development include:

health effects of airborne diseases
undernutrition
health effects of flooding
chemical contaminants
health care systems and facilities

The final outputs of the project include the following resources and tools to help stakeholders produce high-quality data and statistics, and communicate with a range of audiences:

topic documents (available on Zenodo) to provide background research, and guide users on relevant indicators and methods
"climatehealth" R package (available via SOSCHI GitHub repository and CRAN) to run statistical models used to calculate relevant indicators
knowledge-sharing platform (available online) to collate all outputs and improve accessibility to resources and tools

Users include producers of official statistics, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), responsible for monitoring the health effects of climate change. The SOSCHI outputs provide practical, coherent standards and open-source tools. Producers and consumers of climate and health research will also benefit from faster study development based on shared approaches and a more consistent "language" for communication of findings. Ultimately these benefits will translate into a better-informed international community and more effective, evidence-based climate adaptation interventions.

Project timeline

Following the project start in February 2022, our first year involved defining the scope of the climate and health indicators and forming a global network of partnerships.

During years two and three, the project developed and tested our framework through a collaborative approach with global experts. This resulted in a first alpha version of the SOSCHI statistical framework, with over 30 documents published on Zenodo.

In 2025, we focussed on developing indicators and methods for the six priority topics, based on further guidance from global experts and users. These indicators have also been reviewed by the UN's Expert Group on Environment and Climate Changes Statistics (EG-ECCS) climate and health sub-group. Our proposals for headline indicators for international monitoring as part of the Global Set of Climate Change Indicators and Statistics were endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission's 57th meeting in March 2026.

As we near the end of the final year, we have published the "climatehealth" R package, and will be publishing a series of final topic documents for the six priority topics, and the final SOSCHI Framework report. We are also working with stakeholders across the UK, Ghana and Rwanda to develop implementation plans for embedding the indicators into regular official statistics production. This will help ensure longevity of the SOSCHI framework and provide examples for other countries to follow in implementation.

About our funder

This 2022-2026 project has been led by the UK Office for National Statistics and funded by Wellcome (Grant number 224682/Z/21/Z).

About our partners

AIMS RIC, established in 2023, is one of six centres in the AIMS network for post-graduate training, research and public engagement in mathematical sciences.
RIPS at the University of Ghana is an institute for research and training in population and health sciences.
UKHSA is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care; it is responsible for protecting the UK's health security by providing scientific and operational leadership at local, national and global levels.
Cochrane Planetary Health Thematic Group provides an important role in preparing and disseminating evidence syntheses relevant to the health impacts of climate change.

In addition to these partners, we have also worked alongside the UN Global Platform to host our online platform.

We are grateful to the Ghana Statistical Service and the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda for their support for the project.

We have worked with leading experts in the field of climate research. Project governance has included an expert advisory group, chaired by Professor Sir Andy Haines of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), with experts from academia and other global stakeholders.

Selected events

UNECE Expert Forum for Producers and Users of Climate Change-Related Statistics 28 to 30 August 2023 – Meeting page – Presentation (PDF, 1.24MB)
United Nations 10th Meeting of the Expert Group on Environment Statistics, 3 to 10 October 2023 - Meeting page - Presentation (PDF, 937KB)
UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 28), 30 November to 12 December 2023 – Meeting page
UN 8th International Conference on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics - Bilbao, Spain, 10 to 14 June 2024 – Meeting page - Presentation (PDF, 1.48MB)
Global Health Security Conference - Sydney, Australia, 18 to 21 June 2024 – Meeting page
UNECE Expert Forum for Producers and Users of Climate-Related Statistics, 29 to 30 August 2024 - Meeting page - Presentation
Turning Science into Action: Shaping indicators to Advance Health-Protective Policies in a Changing Climate - Bellagio, Italy, 8 to 12 October 2024
United Nations 11th Meeting of the Expert Group on Environment and Climate Change Statistics, 14 to 17 October 2024 - Meeting page - Presentation (PDF, 712KB)
UNECE Joint Task Force on Environmental Statistics and Indicators, 18 October 2024 – Meeting page - Data for Climate Action Report (PDF, 7.2MB)
4th Global Expert Forum for Producers and Users of Disaster-related Statistics - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 28 October to 1 November 2024 – Meeting page
Climate and Health Africa Conference - Harare, Zimbabwe, 29 to 31 October 2024 – Meeting page
56th session of the UN Statistical Commission (2025) – Meeting page – side event (PDF, 58KB) – 21 February 2025
World Health Organization 2025 Global Conference on Climate and Health – Brasilia, Brazil, 29 to 31 July 2025 – Meeting page – Presentation recording
UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) 13th Expert Forum for Producers and Users of Climate Change-related Statistics - Geneva, Switzerland, 1 to 3 September 2025 – Meeting page - Presentation
The 12th meeting of the Expert Group on Environment and Climate Change Statistics (EG-ECCS) London on 23 to 25 September 2025 – Meeting page (PDF, 259KB) – Presentation (PDF, 1.06MB)
Planetary Health Alliance 2025 Planetary Health Annual Meeting – Rotterdam, The Netherlands – 7 to 20 October 2025 – Meeting page
Connecting Health and Climate Change conference (ENBEL) – Tallinn, Estonia – 16 to 18 October 2025 – Meeting page
International Climate Change Conference (6th Edition) (CISC-2025) – Essaouira, Morocco – 16 to 18 October 2025 – Meeting page
UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30) - Belem, Brazil – 10 to 21 November 2025 – Meeting page
SOSCHI Conference, Kigali, 3 to 5 December 2025 – Meeting page – Conference Report
57th session of the UN Statistical Commission (2026) – Background document (PDF, 565KB) – Session recording – Final Report (PDF, 392KB) – New York, United States, 3 to 6 March 2026; side event (PDF, 131KB) – 20 February 2026

Keeping in touch

Please email the Climate and Health team at climate.health@ons.gov.uk.

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