Explaining our work and the implications for UK policy.
Intervention Areas
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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.
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Embedding healthier decision making in the urban development actor network
Senior real estate industry professionals make clear the complex web of decision-makers involved in creating and recreating cityscapes both in the UK and worldwide. The specific objectives of a diverse range of domestic and international UK investor, shareholder, land and property owner, landlord, tenant, and public authority clients they advise and support, are vitally shaped by financial drivers and constraints that are reflected in the built form, environment, and healthiness of urban places.
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Improving the conversation with real estate for healthier urban planning
The need and potential for urban development and planning to combat the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes and mental depression and spatial health inequities, is clear. In the system of English devolved subnational governance, local planning authorities have substantial powers to control and influence the location, use, height, form, and density of development and the deployment of real estate investment capital in cities.
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Introducing a health evidence base with Transport for Greater Manchester
The impact of the urban environment on public health is well researched, yet using this knowledge to implements changes in practice is less so. We know that the ability to walk and cycle, the effect of traffic noise and pollution, access to public transport and location of trees and green spaces all impact population health. Translating that into on-the-ground change requires joined up and concerted effort, overcoming political, economic and organisational challenges. Several of the challenges may be most relevant at the scale of a metropolitan area.
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What needs to happen to ‘level up’ public health?
Reducing health inequalities requires upstream interventions to tackle the wider determinants of health. Wider determinants of health include things like education, employment and the places that we live and work.
The government’s 2022 Levelling Up White Paper set out an ambitious plan to reduce inequalities in the United Kingdom (UK). It includes 12 ‘missions’ through which this will be achieved.
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Making meaningful public engagement with digital tools
Digital tools are increasingly used in urban planning for engaging the public in early-stage discussions and formal consultations in their local area. Investment in digital tools by both national and local government growing apace. We want to examine how involvement of the public in urban planning and development, particularly those facing health inequalities, can be made more meaningful.
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Law, health and planning: Using Health Impact Assessments to improve urban health
Local government urban planners can lack legal capacity to promote healthy urban developments. This means, for example,they can lack confidence, resource or knowledge that would help them use the law to promote health; to reduce the risks of noncommunicable diseases (including poor mental health) and reduce health inequalities. This lack of capacity undermines their ability to effectively incorporate health into decisions about individual applications and ensure that health is given due weight in urban decision making.
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What types of health evidence are persuasive in a complex system?
Tackling complex health problems requires joined up cross-sector working between stakeholders with diverse objectives. Evidence is one tool that can be used to bring stakeholders together and to influence decision-making processes. However, the challenge of using evidence to persuade policy actors to think more about health is enhanced when working in a complex system with multiple stakeholder groups with different priorities, preferences, values and skills.