Explaining our work and the implications for UK policy.
Intervention Areas
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Developing a Healthy Planning Framework
Planning policy, nationally and locally, shapes the environment we live in, and Local Plans can play an integral role in improving both physical and mental population health. Local Plans are produced by local authorities to provide the scope and legal basis for all their urban planning decisions. However, TRUUD research with more than 130 public and private urban development actors in 2021 found that Local Plans are inconsistent and weak regarding the health requirements that are expected from developers when making a planning application.
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Using health evidence to influence urban regeneration in Bristol
Built and natural environments affect our physical and mental health. However, urban development can result in towns and cities that do not support good health and wellbeing: homes may be of poor quality; greenspaces may be insufficient; cars may dominate with limited infrastructure to support walking and cycling; and social infrastructure, such as community centres or health centres, may not meet the needs of the local community.
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Shaping the use of health impact evidence for government appraisals and decision-making
Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or asthma account for 89 per cent of deaths in England and ill-health among working-age people is estimated to cost £150 billion a year.
One way to improve and protect public health and reduce this economic burden is through the design and quality of city development. However, current development and planning policies are not managed in a way to address and promote health issues.
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Providing health impact evidence for government appraisals and decision-making
Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or asthma account for 89 per cent of deaths in England and ill-health among working-age people is estimated to cost £150 billion a year.
One way to improve and protect public health and reduce this economic burden is through the design and quality of city development. However, current development and planning policies are not managed in a way to address and promote health issues.
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Mapping health considerations and multi-sectoral interventions in the urban development decision-making system
The meaningful consideration of health has been consistently low across the different elements of the urban development decision-making system. This encompasses both public and private sector, operating from the national to local levels.
While actions have been taken in the past to facilitate or encourage the consideration of health, they are often aimed at specific actors, domains, processes or otherwise bounded fragments of the larger system.
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Using lay knowledge to transform understanding of links between the built environment and health
‘Lay knowledge’ – that is knowledge and understanding held by lay public/s based on their subjective experience – has attained new prominence as a form of evidence for public health in
the UK during recent decades. Collecting and sharing lay knowledge can illuminate the social determinants – that is the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, play and age – as well as structural processes which impact on health and lead to health inequalities. -
Valuing the external social costs of unhealthy urban developments
The use of economic valuation approaches in measuring, and accounting for, non-market environmental and social “goods and services,” including human health outcomes, has a substantial history. However, its integration into mainstream decision-making has been slow for a number of reasons, not least the considerable challenge of quantifying intangible aspects of health in welfare terms.
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Low Emission Zones improve air quality, physical health and mental well-being
Ambient air pollution is a major public health concern. It has prompted novel policy interventions, in the UK and beyond, notably in the form of Low Emission Zone (LEZ) and Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) schemes. This policy brief explores the impact of these schemes on physical health and mental well-being, using large survey and administrative data covering the whole of England.
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Health in government housing and transport policies
Action in a wide range of policy areas outside of the healthcare system has the potential to have significant benefits for the health of the population. One example is the development of urban spaces, where a wide range of factors such as housing density, air quality, and cycling and walking infrastructure can protect, improve, or damage public health.
Currently however, policies shaping urban development in the United Kingdom (UK) are not delivering healthy places to work and live. In centralised systems like the UK, national government policy sets the context that urban development takes places in at the local level.
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How are local plans promoting healthy and safe communities?
Interest in the building blocks of health is increasingly focused on the role and contribution of spatial planning. The evidence is becoming clear about the effect of policy interventions in the built and natural environment on population health. Achieving healthy places requires planning processes and decisionmakers to proactively consider health and wellbeing.