Explaining our work and the implications for UK policy.
Intervention Areas
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Planning reform and public health
Realising Prevention: Practical Policies for Healthier Society
With 708,000 overcrowded households in England, it is clear why the government wants to build 1.5 million new homes over the course of the current parliament. In recent years, both parties have repeatedly insisted that reforming the planning system is the key to unlocking housebuilding. The Labour Government have laid out extensive reforms to the planning system in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
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Tackling health inequalities with healthy urban development
Realising Prevention: Practical Policies for Healthier Society
Since the landmark Marmot Review was published in 2010, every Labour and Conservative manifesto has promised to rebalance health from treatment to prevention. And yet, despite the ambitions of politicians, change has been far too slow in recent decades.
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What ‘health’ means and why that matters
This policy explainer is split into three sections.
1. The first section explains why it is important that that we ask what ‘health’ means;
2. The second examines three main areas of contemporary debate linked to ‘health’; and
3. The third sets out the implications of these for policy and for political responsibility.
We pay particular attention to preventative policies: those that aim to create the right conditions in society for both a lower incidence of ill health, and better and fairer enjoyment of good health by all. -
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.