Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities

RESEARCH STUDY TITLE: Pathways to equitable healthy cities (London)

We are researchers at Imperial College London who are trying to find out about how our environment affects our health, and in particular children and adolescents’ health. This document tells you about our study, how your information contributes to this research, and how we protect your information.

WHY IS THIS RESEARCH BEING DONE?

In our daily life, we experience many factors that can affect our health in a good way (for example going to the park and green spaces) or in a bad way (for example breathing polluted air). In our study, we are interested in understanding how good and bad factors interact and affect the health of children and adolescents. We study how much polluted air students breathe when they are at school or on their way to school, how noisy it gets around schools (air planes, rail, and road traffic), and what food is available to students in their school surroundings.  On the other hand, some other factors like parks, green spaces, and playgrounds are beneficial, so we are going to measure how much green space is available in the vicinity of students’ homes and schools, and on the way between the two. In our study, we will combine information about students, schools and the environment to help shape new plans and rules in London that will result in breathing cleaner air, eating healthier food, and growing up in a safer neighbourhood.

HOW DO WE PROTECT DATA?

To perform this research, we will use information on all pupils in London and will act as the data controller for this study. This means that we are responsible for looking after your information and using it properly. Data is pseudonymised so we cannot directly identify you. After the end of the study, we will keep the processed data according to Imperial College London’s retention periods Retention Schedule (pdf). A link to Imperial College London’s data protection webpage may be found at Data Protection (ext link) however, this is the notice most applicable to the information provided by participants and therefore takes precedence for all purposes described hereunder.

WHAT INFORMATION WE RECEIVE AND HOW WE USE IT?

We get information about students for this research study from the National Pupil Database, which was collected through the School Census. This information includes pseudonomized ID, age, the postcode where students live and go to school, how they go to school, absenteeism, and some exams results. To ensure that our work is beneficial to all pupils, we also require information that is considered more sensitive, namely “special category data”, such as ethnic origin, gender, and disability. We get this information from the Department of Education, look after that carefully, and always follow the rules that are written in the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) document.

LEGAL BASIS

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. In the case of this research, we use personal information to conduct research that will be in the public interest. As a publicly-funded organisation, we have to ensure that when we use personally identifiable information from people who have agreed to take part in research, it is in the public interest.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regulates data protection and privacy matters in the UK. We will conduct scientific research in compliance with the law and the recommendations and guidance published by the ICO.

YOUR RIGHTS

Your usual statutory rights to access, change or move your information are limited, because of the exceptions applicable to this type of research, and also because we need to manage your information in specific, lawful ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. However, if you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact the Department for Education at data.sharing@education.gov.uk using the information below.

Your rights include:

• Right to access your personal information
• Right to correct your data
• Right to erase your data, stop or limit our processing of your data

CONTACT US

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data or if you want to find out more about how we use your information, please contact us at global.env.health@imperial.ac.uk. Alternatively please contact Imperial College London’s Data Protection Officer via email at dpo@imperial.ac.uk, via telephone on 020 7594 3502 and via post at Imperial College London, Data Protection Officer, Faculty Building Level 4, London SW7 2AZ

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is not lawful you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO does recommend that you seek to resolve matters with the data controller (us) first before involving the regulator.