B4378 - Developing and piloting heat wave questionnaires in ALSPAC - 08/08/2023
Extreme heat (> 40°C heat) is becoming more and more commonplace in the UK meanging overheating in homes and buildings is a key risk. It is important to understand how this affects people’s physical and mental health, wellbeing and behaviour during heatwaves so that strategies can be developed to help people adapt.
Most research in the UK related to heat and health is focused on outdoor temperatures and population-scale health outcomes (e.g., mortality in South-West England) rather than people’s experiences and perceptions of heat, which varies between individuals and the buildings they live in.
We will fill these gaps by working with ALSPAC to develop and test a questionnaire that will ask participants about their experience and behaviour during a heatwave. The data collected from this plot will not be linked back to any ofther data but will help us to understand how heat might affect the health and wellbeing ofdifferent people, help to inform the development of early warnings and contribute to a fellowship application leading to more detailed research in ALSPAC.