Raising the alarm: how a weather-health alert system could help combat the effects of climate change

Led by Dr Tom Roberts, the Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainability from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Surrey, this project draws on expertise from across the Institute’s Sustainability through behaviour change and Sustainability, creativity and communications programmes. With extensive experience and scientific expertise, the project team provided consultancy services to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) with the primary aim of evaluating stakeholder experience of using the new Weather-Health Alert system during the summer of 2023. 

The UKHSA is responsible for community protection from the impact of infectious diseases, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents, and other health threats such as weather-related ones. By providing leadership at intellectual, scientific, and operational levels across a local, national, and global scale, the UKHSA works to ensure the UK remains health-secure.

The challenge 

The project aimed to investigate stakeholder experience of using the new impact-based Weather-Health Alert system. The project required expertise from the Institute to qualitatively evaluate user insights from those who receive the new alerts and use them to inform their own response during heat events and map out the alerts journey from issuance by UKHSA to action on the ground.

Approach from the Institute for Sustainability

The Institute for Sustainability facilitates collaboration between scientific experts and organisations. The Institute’s Sustainability Innovation Hub provides expert voices from the Fellows to nurture ideas, encourages collaboration, and supports organisations in the adoption of sustainable practices, products, or services.

Dr Tom Roberts and Dr Valentine Seymour have extensive knowledge of extreme weather alerting systems in England, having previously worked with the UKHSA to evaluate an earlier version of the hot and cold weather alert systems. Dr Sarah Bulloch provided expertise in data management and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Haeyoung Eun supported the research with a background in Sustainability and Psychology as well as extensive experience in social science research. 

Project methodology 

The project was focused on a series of three deliberative workshops (online), working with around 30 participants each. This allowed three groups of discussion with 93 key stakeholders, who were mainly emergency planners for either local authorities or healthcare providers. The topics of discussion were co-developed by researchers and the UKHSA to investigate stakeholder experience of using the new Weather-Health Alert system during the summer of 2023: The topics included the reason people use the alert system, how the information is processed and disseminated upon receipt of the alert, and the evaluation of the new system in comparison with the previous one. 

During the workshops, participants had the opportunity to share and discuss their experiences of using the Weather-Health Alert system with others. This allowed the researchers to gain a better understanding of issues that arose, such as usability and limitations of the system, as well as the key factors which stakeholders take into consideration during decision-making. In addition to the workshop, six semi-structured interviews were carried out with the primary aim to clarify points from the workshop and discuss key findings in greater detail. Transcript data from the workshops and interviews were analysed with a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis tool, NVivo.

The general consensus was that the new Weather-Health Alert system works well in supporting the planning and action in response to weather events. Specifically, the impact and likelihood matrix-based approach of the new system was highlighted as most useful in planning further actions after receiving the alert. The matrix shows the potential impact of a weather event on health and the likelihood of the impact being realised (see Figure 1), as opposed to the previous system which was based on the probability of reaching threshold temperatures. It was noted that the new focus on the impact and the associated information had more direct relevance to the front-line workers as well as planners. In addition, the advice and guidance associated with the risks were seen as valuable in supporting the relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, it was stated that the information in the alert is clearly communicated and more streamlined in the new system, and this saved time when making decisions about the services that need to be implemented as well as when generating public advisory messaging. 

The researchers also investigated how and why the participants use the Weather-Health Alert system. In terms of the reason people use the alert system, there were slight differences based on the nature of the service offered by each organisation. However, all participants agreed that the primary purpose of using the alert involved ensuring business continuity, supporting staff and service users, and coordinating responses with partner organisations. 

Most participants received alerts through email, and the responses and actions taken after receiving the alert depended on a combination of multiple factors such as the degree of impact and likelihood of the weather event, the participants’ roles within their organisation, as well as other risk preparedness (e.g. travel strike action). Still, it was noted that the key responsibility of the emergency planners is to cascade information to frontline workers and partner organisations after receiving the alert. Once the alerts were received, the planners evaluated them in the context of their geographical region and the services their organisation delivered. The elements were often tailored to make them more relevant to the recipients, by honing the content from the alert and adding additional information from other sources. During this process, the necessity of considering alert fatigue was highlighted among many participants, to avoid the disregard for future alerts. 

The next steps 

The findings clearly demonstrated that the new Weather-Health Alert system meets the needs of its key stakeholders and that it is an improvement from the previous system. The impact-based approach is considered as easy to understand and valuable in supporting actions in response to weather events. Still, it was noted that since it has been used for only one season, it would be important to continue monitoring the usage and feedback from stakeholders. 

Some suggestions were raised during the discussion, specifically regarding the yellow-level warnings and the geographical scope of the alert. While the red- and amber-coloured alerts are useful in deciding on actions to implement, yellow-coloured alerts were less evident as they cover too broad a range of conditions, often containing small and minor differences. Thus, suggestions were made to clearly define the levels among yellow-coloured alerts to help determine the nature of the action that was required. In terms of geographical scope, a few participants stated the challenge of interpreting and cascading the information due to the wide geographical range of the alert, especially for those who cover large areas with diverse geographies and weather systems. The emergency planners were keen to ensure that they disseminate the right information to relevant parties to prevent alert fatigue which could lead to undermining future alerts. Related to this, there was discussion about whether the alerts should be more geographically focused or whether it was just part of the emergency planner’s role to interpret them for their specific region. Such suggestions were included in the report as future considerations in monitoring and improving the alert system. 

The project aims to disseminate the ­­­findings through publication in a peer-reviewed journal. This will also provide an opportunity to link the findings with wider literature and theoretical perspectives. 

Contributors 

• Dr Tom Roberts, Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainability and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Surrey 
• Nathalie Hinds, Director of Operations, Innovation and Partnerships, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey
• Catherine Cole, Innovation Hub Lead, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey 
• Dr Valentine Seymour, Institute Fellow and Lecturer in Sustainability Assessment at the Centre for Environment and Sustainability and Fellow at the Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey 
• Dr Sarah Bulloch, Teaching Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey 
• Haeyoung Eun, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey
• Ross Thompson, Principal Environmental Public Health Scientist, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)
• Sustainability through behaviour change programme, Institute for Sustainability
• Sustainability, creativity and communications programme, Institute for Sustainability.