Social and Environmental Determinants of Health

Overview

The Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Research Driver Programme works to understand how social and physical environments contribute to health inequalities in the UK.

By creating linked resources to health data, it provides tools to inform policies and interventions aimed at reducing these inequalities.

The programme focuses on factors like family structure, work patterns, income, housing conditions, and environmental exposures that can either worsen or improve health disparities. Through evidence-based approaches, it aims to address the root causes of these inequalities.

‘We work with researchers, data providers and the public to develop and enhance new and existing health data resources through linkage to unique address identifiers, using methods to preserve privacy. This not only allows linkage of health data to environmental data at fine spatiotemporal scale, but also linking household members together within these datasets. This will revolutionise research into environmental and social determinants of health in the UK, to inform policies to reduce health inequalities and environmental injustice.”

Pia Hardelid, Professor of Epidemiology, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. Director of Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Research Driver Programme and UKRI and NIHR Net Zero Research Hub.

To achieve this, the programme has four main strategies:

A systematic approach using pseudonymised national data to study population-level factors
Create time-varying social and environmental datasets linked to Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRN)
Generate new UPRN-linked data assets linked to administrative databases
Enhance longitudinal cohort study datasets with UPRN-linked data

By targeting the underlying causes of health disparities, this initiative seeks to improve public health outcomes across the UK.

Programme Co- Leads

Professor Pia Hardelid

Professor Paul Elliott

- Develop governance and technical approaches for linking social and environmental data to people and their households across the UK while protecting privacy
- Work with the public and data custodians to develop principles for maintaining geoprivacy
- Establish reusable national, administrative databases and recruited cohort studies enhanced with UPRN-linked time-specific social and environmental data.
- Generate new research insights into the ways that place-based social and environment factors affect people’s health to inform policies to improve homes, where people live and work, and health within households across the life course.

Workstreams:

Infrastructure, data, methods and governance
Health in aging populations
Health and development from birth to adulthood
Linkage to historic/consented cohorts

Activities:

Development of governance principles for sharing privacy protected UPRNs across Trusted Research Environments (TREs) avoiding re-identification

Identifying standards for linking geospatial data to health and social-related records for re-use

Building and maintaining public trust and public support through involvement and engagement

Geo-coding and UPRN assignment of exemplar data assets

Modelling UPRN-level health-relevant time-resolved geospatial data

Investigating the influences of clustering of health, social factors and adversity

Investigating exposure to pollution in and around homes and schools and health from child to adulthood

Investigating the association between air pollution and sunlight exposure and cognitive and health outcomes throughout the life course

Investigating the associations between the indoor environment and housing and health in older adults in England.

Developing the Small Area health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) governance to widen access

Key Initiatives / Infrastructure

Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD) – https://www.echild.ac.uk

Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort – https://kenvh-cohort.org.uk

SAIL Databank – https://saildatabank.com

UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) – https://ukllc.ac.uk

Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SASHU) – https://www.imperial.ac.uk/school-public-health/epidemiology-and-biostatistics/small-area-health-statistics-unit/

Early life PM2.5 exposure, childhood cognitive ability and mortality between age 11 and 86: A record-linkage life-course study from Scotland: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512301825X

Higher air pollution exposure in early life is associated with worse health among older adults: A 72-year follow-up study from Scotland: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829224000364

Association of early-life exposure to air and noise pollution with youth mental health: findings from the ALSPAC cohort: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519624000767?via%3Dihub

Data Resource Profile: A national linked mother-baby cohort of health, education and social care data in England (ECHILD-MB): https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/53/3/dyae065/7664509

Data Resource Profile: a national cohort of mother-only child (MoC) and mother-siblings (MSib) clusters nested within the Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD): https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v8i6.2392

Database Protocol: Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort: https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v10i1.2475

Linkage of administrative family court care proceedings and hospital records for mothers in England: linkage accuracy and cumulative incidence of family court care proceedings after a first live birth: https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v9i2.2404

Residential mobility amongst children and young people in Wales: A longitudinal study using linked administrative records: https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v9i1.2398

Higher ultraviolet light exposure is associated with lower mortality: An analysis of data from the UK biobank cohort study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2024.103328

Cumulative incidence of chronic health conditions recorded in hospital inpatient admissions from birth to age 16 in England: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyae138

Association of home and neighbourhood conditions with anxiety and depression symptoms during the COVID-19 lockdown: Findings from the ALSPAC cohort: https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.23331.1

Towards Cleaner Air: Pm2.5 Exposure and Disparities Around Childcare Providers in England: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5092563

Awards, ADR UK Recognition Award: Rising to a challenge, ONS Research Excellence Award: Secure Data Creation Award, https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/statistics/requestingstatistics/onsresearchexcellenceaward, HDRUK Susannah Boddie Award for Impact of the Year: Shortlisted.