Public Health Spatial Planning In Practice

Health and wellbeing are significantly influenced by how professionals plan, design and manage the environment. This book supports those working in the built environment and public health sectors, with the knowledge and insight to maximise health improvement through planning and land use decisions. Supported by examples of policy and approaches, it focuses on implementation and delivery, and sets out what is needed to achieve healthier environments within the parameters of legislative and policy frameworks. It demonstrates how when we harness the art and science of public health spatial planning, can we begin to effect changes to the policies and decisions that shape population health.

Health and wellbeing are significantly influenced by how professionals plan, design and manage the environment. This book supports those working in the built environment and public health sectors, with the knowledge and insight to maximise health improvement through planning and land use decisions. Supported by examples of policy and approaches, it focuses on implementation and delivery, and sets out what is needed to achieve healthier environments within the parameters of legislative and policy frameworks. It demonstrates how when we harness the art and science of public health spatial planning, can we begin to effect changes to the policies and decisions that shape population health.

This forward-looking resource recasts the concept of healthy cities as not only a safe, pleasant, and green built environment, but also one that creates and sustains health by addressing social, economic, and political conditions. It describes collaborations between city planning and public health creating a contemporary concept of urban governance—a democratically-informed process that embraces values like equity. Models, critiques, and global examples illustrate institutional change, community input, targeted assessment, and other means of addressing longstanding sources of urban health challenges. In these ambitious pages, healthy cities are rooted firmly in the worldwide movement toward balanced and sustainable urbanization, developed not to disguise or displace entrenched health and social problems, but to encourage and foster solutions. Included in the coverage: Towards healthy urban governance in the century of the city“/li> Healthy cities emerge: Toronto, Ottawa, Copenhagen The role of policy coalitions in understanding community participation in healthy cities projects Health impact assessment at the local level The logic of method for evaluating healthy cities Plus: extended reports on healthy cities and communities in North and Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East Healthy Cities will interest and inspire community leaders, activists, politicians, and entrepreneurs working to improve health and well-being at the local level, as well as public health and urban development scholars and professionals.

Mounting scientific evidence generated over the past decade highlights the significant role of our citiesê built environments in shaping our health and well-being. In this book, the authors conceptualize the •urban health nicheê as a novel approach to

Urban planning is deeply implicated in both the planetary crisis of climate change and the personal crises of unhealthy lifestyles. Worldwide health issues such as obesity, mental illness, growing health inequalities and climate vulnerability cannot be solved solely by medicines but also by tackling the social, economic and environmental determinants. In a time when unhealthy and unsustainable conditions are being built into the physical fabric of cities, a new awareness and strategy is urgently needed to putting health and well-being at the heart of planning. The Routledge Handbook of Planning for Health and Well-being authoritatively and comprehensively integrates health into planning, strengthening the hands of those who argue and plan for healthy environments. With contributions from international leaders in the field, the Handbook of Planning for Health and Well-being provides context, philosophy, research, processes, and tools of experienced practitioners through case studies from four continents.

This book aims to refocus urban planners on the implications of their work for human health and well-being. Provides practical advice on ways to integrate health and urban planning.

Praise for Urban Health and Society "This is a spectacular resource for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and students interested in improving the lives and health of individuals and families in urban settings. This book provides the most current frameworks, research, and approaches for understanding how unique features of the urban physical and social environments that shape the health of over half of the world's population that is already residing in large cities. Its interdisciplinary research and practice focus is a welcome innovation." Hortensia Amaro, associate dean, Urban Health Research; Distinguished Professor, Bouve College of Health Sciences; and director, Institute on Urban Health Research, Northeastern University "Urban Health and Society: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Research and Practice provides students in public health, urban planning, social work, and other professions with the critical knowledge and practical guidance they need to work as effective members of interdisciplinary teams aimed at studying and addressing urban health problems. Throughout the chapters, the book's attention to community participation, social justice, and equity as well as interdisciplinary research methods make it an invaluable resource." Barbara A. Israel, professor, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan "The book will be of great interest to academics, politicians, planners, and public health professionals attempting to understand or reduce urban health risks, create safe urban environments, and deliver effective and sustainable health services and programs to urban populations." Stephen Lepore, professor and PhD program director, Department of Public Health, Temple University

"Urban environments have enormous impacts on health of populations, with close to 80% of the U.S. population living in cities; public health and planning professional are presented real challenges to create the healthiest environment possible. Traditionally, the discipline of urban planning has concerned itself with the built environment -- buildings, roads, utilities, and the like -- while public health concerns itself with the health of people who live in that environment. A major challenge, then, is how to incorporate concerns for health as an integral part of urban planning initiatives, rather than simply measuring the health outcomes after planning decisions have been made. This book now equips public health professionals to participate effectively in the planning process, building positive health outcomes into planning schemes. This book not only provides real guidance on how to solve these issues, but also has case studies that show how effective these policies can be."--Publisher's website.