Drawing on research from the Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation, this panel will critically reflect on how to transform places through evidence-based research for healthy and sustainable urban living. Building on debates around climate action and rising inequalities, the panel will present research findings from interdisciplinary projects on the following urban health themes:
- Creating Healthy Cities (Juliet Carpenter): Juliet will present results from the Commission on Healthy Cities report and the Healthy Cities Toolkit, to highlight the evidence-base needed to tackle healthy place-shaping in cities.
- Healthy place-making (David Howard): Healthy New Towns are considered an effective place-making strategy in English cities to deal with shaping built and social environments to support the health and wellbeing of residents. David will critically engage with debates on designing urban spaces in line with health considerations, reflecting on recent research in two Healthy New Towns in Oxfordshire to assess whether the promise of healthy place-making is being delivered.
- Street Voice and deliberation in local policymaking (Alison Chisholm): Following concerns about social, environmental, and economic inequalities in decision-making processes, Alison will report on research results from the project Street Voice and how it informed local politics on environmental and health issues in local transport planning.
- Ageing-in-place (Hannah Grove): Drawing on health geography perspectives, Hannah will consider how to support older people to age well in place, recognising dynamic personal, social, environmental and climate contexts.
- Eco-social innovation and policy for transformation (Astrid Krisch): Building on debates of effective transformative change needed to enable climate-friendly and healthy urban living, Astrid will critically reflect on strategies “from below” through social innovation, and strategies “from above” through social policy, exploring how both can be shaped by an integrated approach to social and environmental concerns at multiple scales.
The panel will consider how approaches to sustainable urban development intersect broader issues of health and wellbeing of both people and planet, focusing on how ecological and social needs can be balanced and places transformed to accommodate multiple urban complexities.
We invite audience members to critically reflect on their experiences in research, policy and practice to catalyse discussion between session participants.
