Purpose

C+ are the sole supplier on the framework,
which is designed to allow them to onboard specific delivery
partners for customers, allowing us a complaint route to engage the
University

The University of Hertfordshire will work alongside a range of
partners from Orbital Applied Economics, Emirates Aviation
University, Ocean Oculus, Middlesex University, University of
Birmingham, UK Health Security Agency and the National Flood Forum
delivered the best understanding of the complicated aspects of
Mental Health caused be the impact of flooding. They Addressed the
focus on health-vulnerable communities will provide and insight
which currently is not taken into account.

The Environment Agency really like the life-course history analysis
approach.

The team’s expertise and links to public health are
excellent. This type of work requires access to medical data that
only people in this type of team have. It also requires the correct
statistical analysis techniques for public health data. The team
also appear to have expertise in the ethical approval requires for
research into public health and specifically mental health. The
cost assessment will enable a refinement of what we have already in
terms of costs.

The team have excellent expertise in terms of economics and
statistical analyses

There are 5 work packages

WP1: Communications
Lead: Ocean Oculus
Groundwater Project Proposal, and Costing V4.
This work package aims to develop and implement a communications
strategy that effectively engages key audience groups. The strategy
will support the dissemination of findings from other work packages
and raise awareness about the study’s objectives.
Additionally, it will play a crucial role in seeking additional
funding for future phases of the project.

WP2: Systematic Review
Lead: Emirates Aviation University
The objective of this work package is to conduct a systematic
review of existing literature regarding the mental health impacts
of flooding and climate change, with a particular focus on
groundwater flooding. This review will analyse how these impacts
differ based on population characteristics, the effectiveness of
interventions, and the associated costs and benefits. By
identifying key gaps in the literature, the review aims to provide
actionable insights that can inform interventions by health,
environmental, and social care organisations. A meta-analysis may
be conducted, dependent on the nature of the reported evidence of
the selected studies.

WP3: Consolidation and Framework Development
Lead: Middlesex University/UKHSA for data preparation
This work package will consolidate insights from all other work
packages and produce a comprehensive framework for understanding
and assessing the mental health impacts of flooding, particularly
groundwater flooding. The package will run for the entire duration
of the project to capture ongoing insights and ensure continuous
integration of new findings. It will involve extensive stakeholder
engagement to refine the framework and guide future data collection
and interventions.

WP4: Economic Analysis
Lead: Orbital Economics (Support provided by University of
Birmingham and EAU)
This work package aims to conduct a comprehensive economic analysis
of the mental health impacts of flooding, with a focus on
groundwater flooding. It will determine the most suitable metric
for assessing the mental health impacts associated with flooding,
assess the costs and benefits of various interventions and evaluate
the economic burden of mental health conditions exacerbated by
flooding, and provide policy recommendations for cost-effective
interventions, where possible.

WP5: Methodological Health Economic Framework using Bayesian
Network
Lead: Emirates Aviation University
In Phase 1 of the project, we will develop a Methodological Health
Economic Framework based on a probabilistic Bayesian approach to
examine the costs associated with mental health outcomes for
individuals and communities following groundwater flooding. Given
that Bayesian Networks (BNs) are recognised for their ability to
uncover complex causal relationships in multivariate and
cross-sectional data sets, they are particularly suited for
representing the intricate causal relationships between risk
factors associated with groundwater flooding and psychological
outcomes. The BN will be constructed by integrating relevant
insights, information, and expert opinions gathered from other work
packages, alongside the influencing variables from the PHE
secondary dataset, to establish these causal relationships. A key
challenge in Phase 2 will be to further refine the BN to better
understand the causal links between resource efforts on flood risk
interventions—filtered by factors such as community
characteristics, flood attributes, and exposure levels—and
the resulting mental health outcomes. This will enable the
framework to account for various interventions and adaptations
implemented by agencies like the EA, local flood authorities, or
community groups, aimed at mitigating the mental health impacts on
flood victims.
The recommended interventions (from WP2-WP4) will have diverse
impacts, costs, and benefits, necessitating a comprehensive
cost-benefit analysis. Therefore, it is vital to develop an
efficient computational approach that considers uncertainties, to
assess the benefits and effectiveness of interventions
quantitatively and in an optimised manner, especially given the
varied impacts and implementation limitations.
The objectives of this work package in the first phase of the
project are fourfold: (1) Construct the preliminary, yet holistic,
structure of the BN, which will be subject to tuning in the
subsequent phase of the project. (2) Identify and implement
suitable computational methods to evaluate the cost-effectiveness
of interventions, considering uncertainties and influencing risk
factors used to develop the BN model. This will involve a
comprehensive mathematical and computational assessment of the cost
functions proposed in WP4, ensuring efficiency, and the selection
and application of appropriate optimisation techniques to enhance
the accuracy and robustness of the cost-benefit analysis. (3)
Undertake structured expert elicitation, as part of this WP and WP3
and WP4, to refine the developed BN structure and initially
quantify the relationships between factors, variables, and costs
for
each plausible intervention. (d) Identify and recruit participants
for the expert elicitation exercise and prepare the elicitation
methods and questions to ensure a robust process for gathering
expert insights.

Funding is
Partner Totals
University of Hertfordshire £41,759.83
Orbital Applied Economics £37,800.00
Middlesex University £65,548.00
Ocean Oculus £33,000.00
University of Birmingham £30,200.00
Emirates Aviation University £89,925.00
Flood Forum £2,700.00
UK Health Security Agency £72,745.00
Total £373,677.83

In addition C+ charge a fee of 3.6% to facilitate the agreement,
meaning the total cost is £387.130k

Decision

To approve the award of contracts to
Consultancy + (C+) via the YPO Managing Consultancy and
Professional Services framework. C+ will then subcontract the work
to the University of Hertfordshire. This project aims to conduct a
comprehensive economic analysis of the mental health impacts of
flooding, with a focus on groundwater flooding. It will determine
the most suitable metric for assessing the mental health impacts
associated with flooding, assess the costs and benefits of various
interventions and evaluate the economic burden of mental health
conditions exacerbated by flooding, and provide policy
recommendations for cost-effective interventions, where
possible.