Enhancing data sharing to support the health and wellbeing of children and families in poor housing conditions: a mixed methods PhD

Jessica Sheringham (UCL), Marcella Ucci (UCL) and Dr Megan Stanley (Portsmouth City Council)

This mixed-methods PhD will examine the feasibility and value of integrating data available to local authorities with research data to improve health outcomes for children living in difficult housing circumstances. The supervisory team bridges three organisations - Portsmouth City Council (PCC), Nesta and UCL - with distinct and complementary opportunities. PCC provides access to ‘real world’ data that may be linked to research data and will enable the student to explore how such data can be used best to impact local decision making. Nesta provides an excellent applied research environment with close links to national policy to improve children’s development and health. UCL offers unparallelled opportunities to experience truly interdisciplinary research across the housing/health nexus, both in terms of the supervisory team, and in the context of the wider infrastructure of UCL. The student will also benefit from UCL’s excellent research training enabling them to develop transferable skills and specific expertise in using health and built environment datasets. 

Rationale: 

The UK is in a housing crisis, with a shortage of affordable, safe accommodation. Young children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of living in poor or insecure housing circumstances. Often, the narratives about addressing this housing crisis focus solely on the housing sector, i.e. building programmes to increase housing supply. Whilst this is undoubtedly needed, the England government is likely to miss its home building targets. This means that rehousing is not a feasible option in the short term for many families with young children in poor housing conditions. There is increasing attention to efforts to improve existing homes, investing in communities and local amenities to improve the lives of families and support children’s wellbeing and development. Integrating data across services and organisations can play a key role in identifying homes at greatest need and informing the targeting of interventions. 

AIM: 

Advance the integration of data available to local authorities to inform interventions that seek to improve health/wellbeing outcomes for children living in difficult housing circumstances in England (i.e. exposed to indoor air pollution, overcrowding or facing housing insecurity). 

Objectives

1. Develop a strategy for integrating multiple datasets data held by PCC on early years and homes to address a recognised issue affecting the health and development of children
2. Work alongside PCC teams to create a plan for implementing the data integration strategy in PCC and evaluate the data linkage
3. Explore the feasibility and added value of linking council data on early years + homes to research datasets
4. Evaluate the provider’s approach to using integrated data and the process for effective implementation
5. Explore the potential for scaling up and /or applying the learning to other issues. 

The student will develop a plan for the PhD with supervisors, but an illustration is given below to indicate how it might be expected to develop. 

Year 1: Placements with partners and systematic literature review: effectiveness of cross-sector/place-based strategies on children’s health and/or development (focus informed by placement) – to inform the development of a data integration strategy. (obj 1)

Year 2: Placements with partners and linkage of data across PCC and research datasets if feasible (obj 2, 3). To include: appraising the quality of candidate datasets accessible to councils on housing and early years; identifying and appraising candidate research datasets; merging or linking selected council-held data sources and evaluating quality of linkage. 

Year 3: Placements with partners and evaluation of data integration strategy (obj 4) - Design & methods informed by prior work, but could focus on effects on council planning, service delivery; health and development outcomes for families/young children. 

Year 4. Writing up and exploring scale up with key audiences (obj 5), e.g. through UCL: academic audiences in public health, child health and built environment through internal meetings and national conferences; knowledge sharing with national housing organisations, e.g. Healthy Homes Hub; through PCC: local authorities with an interest in data and children’s health (recruited through the HDRCs national data subgroup); local authorities with an interest in linking data to support children’s development. Through Nesta: development of interactive dissemination outputs; connections with national policy. 

• Ingram, E., Cooper, S., Beardon, S., Körner, K., McDonald, H. I., Hogarth, S., ... & Sheringham, J. (2022). Barriers and facilitators of use of analytics for strategic health and care decision-making: a qualitative study of senior health and care leaders’ perspectives. BMJ Open, 12(2), e055504.
• Scott, L., Weigang, Y., Ucci, M., & Sheringham, J. (2025). Data Note: Challenges when combining housing data from multiple sources to identify overcrowded households. International Journal of Population Data Science, 8(5). doi:10.23889/ijpds.v8i5.2927
• Eveleigh, E. R., Nixon, L., O'Donoghue, M., Singh, P., McDonald, R., Ucci, M., & Sheringham, J. (2025). Interconnected factors influencing family health and wellbeing in overcrowded homes and points for intervention – A qualitative study in London. Wellbeing, Space and Society, 8. doi:10.1016/j.wss.2025.100250
• Sheringham, J., Klaptocz, J., Ingram, E., & Ucci, M. (2024). Understanding placed-based pathways by which housing is related to health inequalities: a qualitative interview study in London. Frontiers in Environmental Health. doi:10.3389/fenvh.2024.1358484