Reuniting planning and health: tackling the implementation gaps in evidence, governance and knowledge

Project details

Full project title: ESRC seminar series: “Reuniting planning and health: tackling the implementation gaps in evidence, governance and knowledge”

Duration: January 2015-March 2015

Funder: ESRC

Project Leader for SPE: Dr Laurence Carmichael

Other UWE Bristol researcher: Jo Bushell

Research partners/collaborators:

• David Sweeting, University of Bristol
• Karen Lock, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Tim Townshend, Newcastle University
• Thomas Fischer, Liverpool University
• Ann Marie Connolly, Public Health England
• Chinmoy Sarkar, University of Hong Kong

Project summary

The overall aim of this ESRC seminar series was to consider how public health can contribute to urban planning and the delivery of healthy sustainable communities. This series offered a forum for academics and practitioners to discuss the obstacles to reuniting planning and health and identify workable and economically viable solutions that help deliver health outcomes, wellbeing and equity in cities and neighbourhoods.

This ESRC seminar series supported Public Health England's Healthy People, Healthy Places programme.

Three interlinked core themes were explored in the series:

• Public health evidence for spatial planning: who should supply health evidence to planners and what should be the coverage, scale and presentation of public health evidence to meet the needs of spatial planning?
• The governance of health and planning: what are the key features of governance and policies to ensure the reuniting of health and planning priorities?
• The development of a shared knowledge base through training and professional development: what type of training should be made available to future generations of healthy planners and communities, who should deliver it?

The seminar series was intended to be a stepping stone towards an ongoing dialogue between research and practice, and will help identify a future agenda for research and capacity building.

Visit the seminar series pages

Key output

Carmichael, L., Townshend, T. G., Fischer, T. B., Lock, K., Petrokofsky, C., Sheppard, A., Sweeting, D., Ogilvie, F. (2019). Urban planning as an enabler of urban health: Challenges and good practice in England following the 2012 planning and public health reforms. Land Use Policy, 84, 154-162.

Project contact

For further information on the project, please contact Professor Danielle Sinnett (Danielle.Sinnett@uwe.ac.uk).