We are delighted to announce that Young Lives has secured seed funding from Oxford University’s Social Science Division to lay the foundation of the Young Lives Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks. 

The Hub will span multiple disciplines and use pioneering research methodology, to provide unique evidence on the effects of climate change and environmental shocks on cognitive skills development, and physical and mental health, across the life course and two generations of children growing up in poverty in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. The Hub has the potential to position Young Lives as an international thought leader, reframing understanding of the intersecting impacts of climate change, environmental shocks and pollution in low- and middle-income countries.

Young Lives is uniquely positioned to build this evidence base, drawing on over two decades of longitudinal data following the same individuals across two age cohorts, from infancy to adulthood, in the four study countries, which represent very different levels of economic development, patterns of climate shocks and changes in air pollution. Young Lives research has already revealed in stark terms how childhood exposure to rainfall shocks has an unequal impact on children’s development, affecting their nutrition, learning progress and access to education, with the poorest children most affected and the impact extending to the next generation.

Young Lives is looking to partner with like-minded individuals, corporations or foundations to help deliver our ambitious new Hub.

Find out more about the Young Lives Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks