West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (the Partnership) aimed to develop a vision for how it can become a global leader in responding to the climate emergency. The Partnership commissioned insight research to inform its vision and to understand how to engage both staff and patients in making the fundamental changes that meeting a net zero target will require.
We designed a mixed methods approach involving both qualitative and quantitative research elements. The first stage was a series of 12 deliberative workshops with staff, patients, and citizens. Participants attended two deliberative workshops, each involving participants, a researcher, and a member of the Climate Change team. In the first, participants discussed their current perceptions and behaviours on tackling climate change and they were given information about the climate emergency and current approaches to tackle it, and they discussed possible ways in which the Partnership could become a global leader in tackling climate change.
After the workshop they were given a task to interview a friend, colleague or family member about the topic and the ideas. This innovative technique allowed us to gain greater insight into their response to the information they receive, and how social norms affect the messages. In the second workshop they reported on their interview, how the person responded, and how the interview had affected their own views. Their interview, plus the time to reflect on the ideas from the first workshop, enabled them to take a more informed and reflective position on how to motivate and mobilise people and organisations to take action. The findings from the workshops were explored with the Climate Change Team in the Partnership and a set of draft ideas and campaign messages were identified. We then tested these with a wider group of staff and citizens in an online survey with 413 respondents. The third stage was a series of seven co-creation workshops that produced a final set of messages and a campaign strategy.
The reports are available here: