Understanding the link between climate and health

Our client's challenge

Planetary health, or the idea that human health is intrinsically linked to the health of the planet, is a relatively new yet growing concept.  Our client, Wellcome, seeks to motivate an urgent response to the climate crisis among governments, businesses, communities and individuals by making health arguments central to the climate discourse.

To do this, Wellcome needed to answer some vital questions:

• What, if any, is the link between how people think about climate change and their personal health?
• In what ways does the link between climate change and human health motivate people to take action and/or encourage advocacy towards the climate crisis?

Ipsos' solution

Ipsos conducted a knowledge audit to map current planetary health data and insights, followed by a large programme of ethnographic research in South Africa, Kenya, UAE, Brazil, Thailand and South Korea.  This comprised of auto-ethnographic reflections and ethnography with a range of participants in each country.

We synthesised the findings in a collaborative workshop to align on insights that could inform meaningful quantitative questions, as well as the basis for wider dissemination activities.

The impact on our client's business question

The impact of the work for Wellcome was multi-fold:

1. Restructuring hypotheses and initial thoughts on ‘planetary health’
2. Directly feeding into organisational restructuring and strategy sessions
3. Documentary from the ethnographic footage, which is due to be shown in a screening to senior stakeholders.

How Ipsos helps businesses
through their ESG journey