Note: This Health Impact Assessment will be considered by the Health and Wellbeing Board on 21 July 2026
Addressing Environment, Climate and Health – A Systemwide Health Impact Assessment for East Sussex (ECH-HIA).
Taking a Whole Systems Approach for Integrating and Advancing Population and Planetary Health in All Our Approaches.
To address the health effects of a changing climate, East Sussex has developed the Environment, Climate and Health, Systemwide Health Impact Assessment (HIA). The HIA is a science-based, predictive and collaborative public health assessment that uses evidence, future scenarios and systems thinking to identify actions that improve health, environmental and organisational outcomes. It has been co-developed with partners across multiple sectors. It has also been informed by an East Sussex residents’, capturing their experiences of climate and health impacts. The HIA’s key message is that climate-related health risks (including heat, air quality, extreme winds, flooding, drought, food security, wildfire, infectious diseases and coastal change for example), cannot be addressed by individual organisations alone and requires coordinated action across the whole system.
The HIA has been designed to:
- Provide a strategic evidence base for policy and decision-making;
- Support practitioners, partners and system leaders; and
- Guide implementation across organisations and sectors.
The HIA provides an evidence-informed framework for embedding climate resilience and health equity across policy, planning and service delivery. It integrates climate and health across sectors—including health and care, housing, planning, transport, utilities, community voluntary sector, and the wider determinants of health. The HIA identifies practical opportunities, co-benefits and actions at the local, national and international levels. The process has also strengthened partnerships, built consensus and established a shared vision for climate resilience across East Sussex.
Key outputs include:
- A Vision for East Sussex.
- East Sussex Climate Hazards and Health Data Profile.
- East Sussex Climate and Health Economic Evaluation.
- Comprehensive considerations, opportunities and action steps covering climate hazards, wider determinants of health, vulnerable populations and settings, system sectors, resilience, assets and co-benefits.
- A Systemwide Policy Review and Policy Review Tool.
- A Literature Review and Review Tool.
- A Rapid Climate and Health Considerations Assessment Tool.
These outputs are supported by an implementation framework, monitoring arrangements and a long-term roadmap to 2080.
- Introduction, The What, Why and How
- The Evidence and Summary of the Methods
- Considerations, Opportunities and Action Steps.
- Part 3A – The Health Effects of a Changing Climate – Considerations, Opportunities and Action Steps (pdf, 8MB)
- Part 3B – The Wider Determinants of Health – Considerations, Opportunities and Action Steps (pdf, 2MB)
- Part 3C – Sectors, Services and Stakeholders – Considerations, Opportunities and Action Steps (pdf, 1.3MB)
- Part 3D – Vulnerable Population Groups – Considerations, Opportunities and Action Steps(pdf, 1MB)
- Part 3E – Vulnerable Settings – Considerations, Opportunities and Action Steps (pdf, 425KB)
- Part 3F – Further Considerations and Opportunities for Win-wins, Co-Benefits and Asset Based Resilience and Protection (pdf, 570KB)
- Overall HIA Conclusions: Next Steps, Key Findings and Messages
Please note: Final designed documents are being worked up and will be available in due course.
Appendices referred to in Part 4 are available on request, please email the JSNA team:
Appendix A – Glossary
Appendix B – Methods Statement
Appendix C – Implementation Support Tool and Impact Evaluation Tool
Appendix D – Literature Review
Appendix E – Policy Review
Appendix F – Checklist Tool
Appendix G – Workshop Materials
Appendix H – Scoping Tables
Appendix I – Community Power Learning Story
Appendix J – Data Sources