British Academy Knowledge Frontiers International Interdisciplinary Research 2026 - British Academy - Obsidian v1.8.10

Housing, Health, and Non-State Actors: A Comparative Study

This project investigates how non-state actors influence the relationship between housing and health in the UK and Hong Kong, using digital tools and community input. It aims to provide policy recommendations for creating healthier cities and reducing inequalities.

Expected Outcomes: Peer-reviewed publications, open-source monitoring tools, policy recommendations for C40 Cities, enhanced community capacity, and insights transferable to resource-constrained settings.

Core Content:

1. Analyze Non-State Actor Networks:

• Identify and map how energy companies, property technology firms, city alliances, and NGOs influence housing quality and health in the UK and Hong Kong.
• Conduct stakeholder interviews to understand their roles and impact.
• Analyze governance structures to see how these networks are enabled or constrained.

2. Develop Digital Monitoring Tools:

• Create a prototype platform that integrates housing and health data, incorporating community input.
• Design a realistic architecture with a data layer, analysis layer, and interface layer.
• Ensure the platform is web-based, mobile-responsive, and bilingual (English/Chinese).

3. Analyze Policy Interventions:

• Use quasi-experimental methods to examine the relationship between interventions by non-state actors and health indicators.
• Employ a difference-in-differences approach to exploit policy variations.
• Apply machine learning techniques like random forests and LASSO for deeper insights.

4. Enable Cross-Context Learning:

• Compare housing-health dynamics between the UK's temperate, heating-dominated climate and Hong Kong's subtropical, cooling-dominated climate.
• Identify insights from the UK's market-driven and Hong Kong's public housing-dominated systems that can be transferred to other contexts.

5. Build Community Capacity:

- Train 15-20 resident researchers in participatory research methods.
- Support participatory research to integrate community knowledge.
- Facilitate knowledge exchange to empower communities.

6. Inform Policy Networks:

• Provide evidence to C40 Cities and WHO Healthy Cities networks.
• Develop policy briefs and conduct workshops to translate research into actionable policy.

7. Create Open Resources:

- Develop open-source code and documentation for the digital monitoring tools, adapting them for other researchers.

Q&A

Q: Why is this research important?

A: This study addresses critical gaps in understanding how non-state actors and different climate zones influence housing-health relationships, especially with rapid lifestyle and residential pattern changes due to remote work. It also prioritizes integrating community knowledge, which is often missed in traditional research.

Q: What are the ethical considerations of this project?

A: The project prioritizes ethical considerations through clear informed consent processes, emotional and financial protection for participants, child protection measures, strict data security, and community safeguarding. These measures are developed with community input and regularly reviewed.

Q: How will data be protected?

A: The project will adhere to strict data protection protocols, including keeping UK and Hong Kong data within their respective jurisdictions, encrypted data transfers, restricted data access, and aggregated data sharing to prevent individual identification. All data practices will comply with GDPR and Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.

Q: What will community involvement look like?

A: Community members will be actively involved through the recruitment of resident researchers, the establishment of a community advisory panel, co-design workshops, and ongoing feedback sessions. These measures ensure that community knowledge is integrated into the research process and that the project benefits the communities involved.