Reuniting Health and Planning
By Mark Drane
Date
October 6, 2017
How do we reunite health and planning? Better integrating these two fields continues to rise up on the agendas of planners, healthcare professionals, and governments alike. In a recent seminar, leading thinkers and practitioners from across the UK came together to share the latest evidence linking health and the physical environment.
Mark Drane, Studio Principal, attended this event on behalf of IBI Group and has written an event summary about his experience. He notes:
“Reflecting on this event, it is clear that there is much good work on creating healthy places in both academia and practice. Indeed many contributors went out of their way to emphasise that they were both researchers and practitioners seeing the two as intertwined. However, a significant gap between evidence-base and practice remains, and this is a challenge for the future.”
Click here for larger image. Andre Pinto’s “review of reviews” for Neighbourhood Design, as presented at the event.
As Mark Drane concludes in his article,
“Programmes like NHS Healthy New Towns can provide a beacon of hope and innovative examples for industry, but the NHS cannot work with every developer. However, that doesn’t stop the costs associated with ill health resulting from poorly designed environments falling on the NHS and other public services. A wider move is needed within the development, planning, and design industry to respond to this challenge.”
Read Mark’s full summary of this event here.
Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash
