Synthesising climate evidence

The rapid acceleration of climate change has generated an unprecedented volume of scientific data, research papers, and reports. However, for this vast body of evidence to effectively guide public health policy and clinical practice, it must be rigorously curated, evaluated, and translated. Synthesising climate evidence is the vital bridge between research discoveries and real-world application, ensuring that decision-makers have clear, reliable, and actionable information to guide their strategies.

As the global climate crisis intensifies, policy-makers, healthcare leaders, and urban planners require a cohesive understanding of what the totality of the evidence says. Disparate data points regarding environmental exposures and health outcomes must be evaluated and integrated to identify opportunities for action, investigate the effectiveness of interventions, understand conflicting findings, and establish a foundation for healthcare and policy decision-making.

Our work in evidence synthesis focuses on distilling complex, multi-layered data into clear insights that answer important questions for stakeholders. We focus on three critical areas:

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses – Conducting rigorous, transparent, and reproducible reviews of research on a range of health and climate questions, including the heat stability of medicines, efforts to reduce carbon emissions in healthcare, and the effectiveness of public health adaptation interventions to protect the community against heatwaves.
• Evidence mapping – Exploring broader fields of research to understand what sources of evidence are available, and guide future research investments toward the most critical unanswered questions in the climate-health nexus.
• Methodological research – Collaborating internationally to develop new methods appropriate for the inclusion of climate-related evidence in healthcare decision making.