Main research areas
The research work in COPE is organised in four main work streams/work packages.
Identify health risks from exposure to heat and air pollution (WP2)
COPE will use epidemiological methods to associate individual and concurrent exposure to heat and air pollution with human health in Kolkata and Delhi. This research area has two components, 1) estimating acute risk of individual and concurrent exposure, and 2) quantifying the changes in core body temperature in response to heat stress through thermal imaging.
The work will be led by IITD together with partners LSHTM, UQ, CICERO, SwitchOn, IITM.
Constructing the Early Warning and Decision-support System (WP3)
COPE partners IITM and NCAR have developed an operational air quality forecast system over South Asia. This system is used over Delhi supplemented by a decision support system to predict air quality. COPE will leverage the existing system over Delhi to include early warnings on extreme heat and include specific warnings for concurrent exposure to extreme heat and air pollution. COPE will produce actionable information allowing vulnerable individuals and communities to reduce their exposure by taking preventive measures. A similar early warning system will be developed for Kolkata. The forecasts of exposure will be supplemented with forecasts of excess death burden based on the research from work package 2.
The work will be led by IITM and NCAR with partners LSHTM, CICERO and IITD
Making the Early Warning and Decision-support System useful for decision-makers and end users through co-design with user partners (WP4)
This work focuses on understanding the experiences socially vulnerable populations in Delhi and Kolkata have with heat and air quality. We will look further into experiences and worry about health risks, access and responses to heat and air quality warnings and barriers to receiving risk information and taking protective measures. We will also investigate what information and channels of communication the end users find most useful. Furthermore, to inform the design of the early warning and decision support system, we will engage with stakeholders in the health sector, emergency services, and community organizations to explore the efficacy of existing warning systems and what information would be useful for local policies and public health interventions. Stakeholders will also pilot test the early warning system.
The work will be led by NCAR and SwitchOn with partners CICERO, IITM and IITD
Future heat and air pollution hotspots in India (WP5)
This research will identify existing and potential future hotspots for heat and air pollution in India with the objective to offer actionable recommendations to policy makers with timely and reliable information on modifying existing and implementing new early warning and decision-support systems in the identified hotspots. This could help prepare the health systems and increase resilience of vulnerable populations. The outcomes of this work will synergize the IITMs plans to implement the air quality forecast system in 100 cities across India.
The work will be led by CICERO with partners NCAR, IITM, LSHTM and UQ