CoCareSociety from the BMBF funding measure "Junior Research Groups: Climate, Environment and Health" develops climate services for the care industry and the caring society
How can the health and well-being of seniors be improved under climate change conditions? CoCareSociety investigates long-term care and health in ageing societies as well as their energy needs and energy use.
Climate change mitigation, age-friendly societies and energy consumption in residential buildings are the challenges of today and tomorrow. An integrated, transdisciplinary and solution-oriented new research approach is needed to bring together knowledge and practical experience from the fields of health, climate change, energy efficiency and care for the elderly.
The junior research group "CoCareSociety" (Co-creating Climate Services for Care Economy and Caring Society), will explore "Co-creating Climate Services for the Care Economy and Caring Society". The aim is to promote transdisciplinary knowledge on climate services, care for the elderly and energy efficiency behaviour in residential buildings. Together with the applicants, win-win solutions are developed to improve the health-climate-energy nexus measures, among others, through a participatory process.
In doing so, the junior researchers of the CoCareSociety project are investigating three main questions:
- Firstly, they investigate the connections between climate change, long-term care and the health of senior citizens, as well as their energy needs and the energy efficiency in living spaces.
- Together with stakeholders, senior citizens and interest groups, future scenarios such as climate change, energy demand development, long-term care and health are analysed and immediate measures as well as long-term adaptations are developed in all disciplines involved. Joint solutions will be developed.
- Finally, barriers and incentives in user behaviour will be investigated to identify the factors that change behaviour in favour of health, climate and energy protection. This will enable the development and implementation of needs-based climate services for the ageing society as well as their transfer and up-scaling.
User-oriented climate information is an important basis to reach these goals, in order to create multiple benefits for and with socio-economically vulnerable groups in the ageing society, and to improve the health and long-term well-being of senior citizens, for example during particularly hot weather periods.
The BMBF is funding CoCareSociety with around 2.2 million euros from 2023 to 2028.
Project lead
Dr. Jo-Ting Huang-Lachmann
Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
Fischertwiete 1
20095 Hamburg
Tel.: +49 40 226 338-413
E-Mail: jo-ting.huang-lachmann@hereon.de
Cooperation with:
Dr. BUYANA Kareem, School of Geography, Geoinformatics, and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda
Prof. Dr. Kristie EBI, Center for Health and the Global Environment, University of Washington, USA
Prof. Dr. Masahiro HASHIZUME, School of International Health, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Japan
Prof. Dr. Shih-Chun Candice LUNG, Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica; Institute of Environmental Health, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Prof. Dr. Virginia MURRAY, Public Health England, UK
Dr. Sokhna THIAM, African Population and Health Research Center, West Africa Regional Office, Dakar, Senegal
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