PhD Project - Frank You
While clinical trials contribute significantly to establishing an evidence base for medicine and healthcare, they inadvertently generate greenhouse gas emissions with great environmental impacts. By the end of 2023, there were 477,237 trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov which alone are estimated to account for 37 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) – a volume not dissimilar to the carbon footprint generated from annual energy consumption in Norway (37.4 million tonnes of CO2e). Despite previous effort to regulate trial specific carbon output (e.g., NIHR Carbon Reduction Guidelines), progress of decarbonizing clinical trials remains slow. Of the small number of studies that explore the carbon footprint of clinical trials including previous and recent carbon audits, activities such as trial-related travel by trial teams and patients were found to be particularly carbon intensive.
Many of the identified carbon generating activities across clinical trials rely on people (e.g., patients, clinicians, trial team staff) performing actions (e.g., trial teams’ and patients’ travels for the trial purpose, trial centre’s energy consumption). These trial-related environmental behaviours are common across trial designs and clinical contexts, contextually dependent and, importantly, amenable to change. As far as human behaviour is concerned, behavioural science can offer critical, replicable, and generalisable insights to address the behaviours of trial teams in relation to design and delivery of greener trials.
This PhD project aims to apply behavioural science to investigate the challenges and opportunities for designing and delivering greener trials. To achieve this, the project encompasses the following:
Objective 1:
Identify behavioural carbon hotspots across the trial lifecycle (design, conduct, analysis, and reporting) that can be identified as priority pro-environmental behaviours that are amenable to change.
Objective 2:
I will identify key opportunities and challenges faced by trial teams in relation to pro-environmental behaviours related to trial design, conduct, analysis, and reporting.
Objective 3:
Based on the results of Objectives 1 and 2, I will develop pro-environmental behaviour change intervention(s) to target trial teams at a key stage during the trial lifecycle and establish feasibility and acceptability.
Objective 4:
With reference to the behavioural insights generated, I will develop a ‘how-to guide’ for trial teams on how to develop and implement behavioural diagnostics and solutions for supporting greener trials.
Supervisors:
Professor Katie Gillies, Dr Taylor Coffey, Dr Dan Powell, Professor Paula Williamson
Contacts
- Frank You; s.you.23@abdn.ac.uk