Opportunities to prioritise health impact in urban design and development

Target audience: professionals working in the private sector of urban development, whose role does not significantly involve the prioritisation or incorporation of health into their work

Join Zoe Sharpe at Dandara Living for insights and challenges for professionals in the property sector to think about and act on health for developments.

This free online event is aimed at professionals working in the private sector of urban development to examine inertia on health in the urban development world. Participants will be able to take part in discussions and learn about available resources to improve practice. 

 TRUUD (Tackling Root Causes Upstream of Unhealthy Urban Development) is a major five-year research programme, funded by the UK Prevention Research Partnership, to reduce non-communicable diseases (like diabetes, cancers, respiratory illness, anxiety and depression) and health inequalities by examining and providing resources for urban development decision-making.

Professionals working in the private sector of urban development agree that health is important and should be prioritised. This session involves thoughts and discussion about how to raise health further up the agenda.

According to TRUUD research, despite agreeing that health is important, there are three strong reasons for inertia on health in urban development:

1. Insufficient power to make necessary changes;
2. Culture within the industry that slows down/prevents innovation; and
3. Professionals not being sure about the specifics of what to do.

The session will explore the challenges of integrating health into urban development and opportunities to overcome them. This will include a talk and discussion around:

• Health and social value.

• Evidence-based links between the urban environment and health. This will be illustrated by data from the HAUS model (developed by the TRUUD team), providing information on the cost of health impacts resulting from the urban environment.

• Risks and benefits of prioritising health.

• Examples of how organisations are taking action to prioritise health in urban development.

• Signposting to helpful resources to support the prioritisation of health.

At the beginning of the session, we will ask for your consent to take part and for you to complete a short 5-minute survey to explore your thoughts on health in urban development. At the end of the session, you will then be asked to complete another 5-minute survey. Please note that you can still take part in the session if you do not want to be involved in the research.

The main sessions will be recorded (audio and video) for the purpose of capturing the delivery of the presenter for further analysis. Therefore, anything that you say during the main session will be part of the recording. However, the breakout groups will be confidential and will not be recorded. Researchers will also conduct observations and take notes, but these will remain confidential - more details of the research will be available nearer to the event.

Presenter: Zoe Sharpe, Senior Development Manager at Dandara Living.