Public health benefits and challenges of Glasgow’s transition to climate resilience: Systems science and data analytics

Climate change is the greatest public health threat facing the 21st century world, and the effects of climate change on health are unequally distributed between countries, and within countries and cities, between rich and poor. Climate resilience cannot be achieved without major transformations in most areas of private and public life, including business and work, planning, construction, housing, mobility, food, digital connectivity and the way public services are delivered. Depending on how they are designed and implemented, the wholesale solutions required may have both positive and negative effects on physical and mental health and health inequalities, but the health conditions most affected, the breadth and magnitude of future health problems and the time frame over which these problems will manifest remain largely unknown.

This period of major transition provides Glasgow’s leaders and changemakers with an opportunity to design solutions that solve not just the ecological challenges but that create co-benefits through addressing the social, economic and environmental determinants of health. This PhD will sit between WS1 (system science) and WS3 (data science) and aims to 1) assess the potential direct and indirect short- and long-term impacts of climate change mitigation on the health and mental health of Glasgow residents, and 2) consider possible health and health inequality impacts of solutions developed by GALLANT work packages and/or City partners (e.g. Green Deal) and 3) To review and bring together longitudinal, spatially explicit data on health, social and environmental conditions and investigate how such data can be used to determine how climate change has affected Glasgow residents’ health to date and to inform future projections and intervention planning. 

Within the overall programme, there is a strong effort to understand synergies and trade-offs between health, social and ecological outcomes. This PhD enhances the impact of GALLANT through its focus on the health and wellbeing inequalities impacts of climate mitigation scenarios considered by Glasgow decision makers – as well as considering the health and wellbeing impacts of delays to action. This project strongly integrates high-level systems approaches with indicators and data.

The PhD student will work directly with a team of researchers at UofG and colleagues at Glasgow City Council (GCC) to co-produce intervention scenarios and explore how to best deliver quantitative and qualitative multi-criteria decision support.

The successful candidate for this post will demonstrate skills and experience in qualitative and quantitative systems science/data analytics methods and a strong interest, and ideally related prior research, in public health, societal inequalities and/or climate resilience. They will demonstrate the capability to work closely with city stakeholders and communities across ecological, health and societal sectors.

To be classed as a UK/Home applicant, candidates must meet the following criteria:

• Be a UK National (meeting residency requirements), or

• Have settled status, or

• Have pre-settled status (meeting residency requirements), or

• Have indefinite leave to remain or enter.

All applicants must have or expect to obtain a first-class degree (2.1 or equivalent) in an appropriate discipline. This may cover, but is not limited to, earth sciences, social science, mathematics, engineering, computing, physics, bio- and chemical sciences.

We champion Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, believing that this is the way to increase research productivity and quality and to enhance societal and economic impact. Likewise, the University of Glasgow and our external partners are fully committed to EDI principles.

We support applications from under-represented backgrounds, childcare support for conference attendance, flexible working for carers and promote a work-life balance.

For enquires related to EDI, please address to GALLANT EDI Champion, Dr Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay via the GALLANT-phd mailbox.

How to Apply: Please refer to the following website for details on how to apply: https://www.gla.ac.uk/gallant. For studentship enquiries, please contact [Email Address Removed].