Places and health

We know that your health is affected by the environment you live in, both positively and negatively. The local, national and international governments and organisations who influence and control these environments really want to design and manage them so that they help everyone stay as healthy as possible. Surprisingly, there is little evidence about what to do, how long it might take to have effects, and how big those effects on health might be. Our research tries to help. We know that the place you live is made up of many interconnecting things including natural and man-made environments, people, economy, and culture. These all work together to influence health. Our research is focused on understanding where, when and how places change, because then we can study the effects of those changes on health. We also study how people use their towns and cities because we can’t assume everyone stays in their neighbourhood all the time. We need to understand how and why they move around, day to day, and how that affects their health too. Finally, we use new methods to test out our understanding of how places affect health and how we could improve their design and management. These methods include using computers to simulate what does, and might, go on in neighbourhoods and cities, and the likely impact on residents’ health. Such simulations are very new to health research and we want to know if and when they can be helpful.

We know that our living environment affects our health. One implication is that environment could be a lever to improve population health and narrow inequalities, but there is currently little robust evidence about what the best interventions or investments for health would be, how long they might take to work, and the likely extent of benefits. Building on our past work, the programme aims to tackle that lack of evidence and the reasons for it, in the next five years and beyond. A distinguishing feature of the Places programme is its focus on connections between environment, people and health. As social as well as epidemiological scientists, we conceptualise and research places as social, economic and environmental systems which shape and are shaped by individuals. In practice, this means we focus on time as well as space; a longitudinal perspective is needed to see how people and places affect each other.
The programme’s long-term aim is to understand how urban environments do, or can be modified to, protect and improve population health and reduce health inequalities. The objectives are to i) lead a step-change in the availability and application of novel data and methods to improve understanding of how places affect health; and ii) utilise these new methods and data to identify and evaluate place-based interventions for improving population health and reducing health inequalities.
We will deliver these aims via 3 interconnected workstreams. Workstream 1 creates and uses longitudinal data to tell us how places change over time and the consequences for population health and related behaviour. Workstream 2 collects and uses GPS data and approaches developed from ecology to tell us how people use places; how the content and configuration of settlements affects where they go, what they do, and what this means for their health. Workstream 3 creates dynamic simulation models to explore both how people, place and health are linked in systems, and how places can be changed to improve health and reduce inequalities. The health and health-related outcomes of primary interest are mental health and wellbeing, exposure to alcohol and tobacco environments, contact with nature, physical activity, and population-level indicators of health such as mortality rate.