BRAZIL-UK Healthy Urban Mobility (HUM)

Since the initiation of World Health Organization (WHO) Healthy Cities movement over thirty years ago there have been increased efforts to understand how the urban environment affects health outcomes and can produce more equitable health benefits. A key concern is the way in which the physical fabric of cities affects urban mobility and how this relates to health and wellbeing. Built environmental design supportive of walking and cycling ('active mobility') could help to promote moderate physical activity as part of daily travel routines delay biological ageing and age-related conditions and improve overall health and wellbeing. In the Global South, however, the rapid growth in private motorization and the lack of value placed on walking and cycling means the association between environmental attributes and active mobility are more complex. This is having a significant impact on the urban poor and low-income groups who already engage in, and rely on, walking and cycling (and public transport) to meet their daily travel needs. The trend in the Global North, meanwhile, particularly in countries like the UK, is towards a decrease in physical activity and this is associated with more widespread private car use, obesogenic environments and greater mechanisation in the home, workplace and public places. The implementation of healthy urban mobility as part of the broader Healthy Cities concept, therefore, presents serious challenges in both the Global South and Global North and requires different approaches towards its realisation. The focus of the BRAZIL-UK Healthy Urban Mobility (HUM) research is on understanding the impact of personal (im)mobility on both individual and community health and wellbeing of different neighbourhoods in Brazil and in the UK, and developing a participatory approach to support and develop healthy urban mobility and to address health inequalities and injustice. The investigation will use a mixed method approach comprising five specific field research components (a) spatial mapping to understand the physical and built environment context in which mobility takes place (b) a social survey to capture mobility and health and wellbeing profiles of selected communities (c) in-depth biographic interviews to understand role of past experiences of mobility and the rationale behind selected modes of mobility - 'mobile trajectories' (d) micro-ethnographies through mobile interviews to capture contemporary everyday experience of being (im)mobile and (e) a participatory approach to involve the local community in identifying problems and solutions for healthy urban mobility and community wellbeing. The work will focus in three Brazilian cities and one UK city: Brazilia (Federal State), Florianopolis (State of Santa Catarina), Porto Alegre (State of Rio Grande do Sul) and Oxford (Southern England). These are chosen because of their different spatial and demographic characteristics and the challenges they are facing in relation to promoting healthy urban mobility. Empirical research will be timed such that it will be conducted in parallel in both Brazil and the UK using exactly the same approach and methods so that the UK-BRAZIL multidisciplinary team can engage in co-learning and knowledge exchange and more specifically (a) evaluate the overall approach and methodologies; (b) compare datasets between cities and between Brazil and UK; and, (c) evaluate potential policies and delivery models to promote healthy urban mobility in different contexts. Through the combination of novel research methods to experiment and assess and actively involve communities and stakeholders in active dialogue and mutual learning we hope to develop new approaches to mobility planning that seek to address health inequalities within urban areas.

Non-academic users of this research cover different range of stakeholders that can benefit from the outputs and findings of the work in the short, medium and long term. At the community level key immediate and long term beneficiaries will be the urban residents in Brazil and UK particularly the case cities of Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Florianopolis and Oxford. They will benefit from the outputs of the work through raising awareness and capacities for instituting healthier mobility policies and practices for enhanced health and wellbeing at city and community levels. These include formal and informal (Brazilian) low income settlements. The research, therefore, will contribute to greater equity among different socio-economic groups and neighbourhoods. The local residents of the different case study neighbourhoods will also benefit through direct participation in the research process and social survey data gathering training methods that will enhance their abilities for impacting decisions on their neighbourhoods not only in relation to this research and mobility but more widely in terms of public and private sector interventions in other spheres related to urban development and social/health policies. In the longer term the local residents will also benefit in terms of their reduced morbidity and injuries and enhanced general wellbeing that will improve their quality of life and provide greater scope for pursuing social and economic (livelihood) objectives both in terms of improved physical capacities and reduced medical costs.
Additional direct beneficiaries in the medium to long term periods are local municipalities as well as city, state and central government public organisations and policy makers who are involved in policy design and implementation for urban mobility, health and urban development. They will benefit by being able to use the results of the research for articulating more effective and equitable mobility policies to enhance health and wellbeing and their more effective implementation through direct involvement with the local citizens in participatory workshops and better recognition of their needs and priorities. In addition to interacting with local citizens they will also get the benefit of interaction with a wider range of policy makers from different policy areas as well as NGOs and professionals in the fields of mobility and health and urban development more generally. Overall we expect that through their participation in the research process we can contribute to developing new skills and shifting attitudes among policy makers and public officials as well as the professional communities towards a more holistic understanding of health and mobility and urban development that is focused on local needs, and values co-learning and effective participatory approaches with the local communities.
In the longer term local and international development, planning and mobility professionals, NGOs, and community activists can utilise the results in their advocacy and mobility/development related activities. Similar to the public policy makers we envisage that representatives of the relevant local professional and NGO communities can participate in the research process that itself will enhance their understanding and capacities in terms of working in the field of health and mobility but also acquire transferable lessons that can be applied in the field of urban development more generally.
In addition UK government and international donor and development organisations (e.g., DFID, UN-Habitat, WHO, UNEP, World Bank) can have more informed aid, development and advocacy work in Brazil. Finally, considering that some 1.2% of GDP in Brazil is lost due to road accident crashes in the longer term this work will contribute to reducing the burden of disease and injury at city and national levels and thereby contribute to overall economic growth and development.