Healthy Places Special Interest Group

The Healthy Places Special Interest Group (SIG) has been established to provide a forum for information sharing, collaboration and advocacy on issues surrounding the natural and built environments, urbanisation, and sustainability, with a view to promoting and protecting health and wellbeing across the globe, in the context of the climate emergency and Covid-19 pandemic.

Overarching aim: To increase recognition of the inter-relationship between built and natural environments, inequalities, health and wellbeing, and the application of health considerations in the design and planning of the built environment.

Identified objectives:
  1. Identify members of the wider public health force, elected members and other key decision makers and engage them to promote and develop understanding of the inter-relationship between the environment (built and natural) and health, wellbeing and inequities, with a view to create a shared vision of healthy and resilient cities/places, in line with the World Health Organization Healthy Cities approach.
  2. Strengthen recognition of the relationship between environment and health, and collaborate and advise on appropriate metrics to evaluate health and wellbeing and the impact of interventions in built and natural environments.
  3. Share best practice, knowledge, advice and guidance on approaches to developing and ensuring healthy built and natural environments.
  4. Advise on, and advocate for, a focus on healthy built and natural environments in local, regional and national policies and practice.
  5. Build skills and strengthen capacity within the wider public health workforce by delivering training and learning events
  6. Support and drive improvements in training on Healthy Places for public health registrars.
  7. Create a network of organisations, stakeholders and other SIGs to work collaboratively to support the Healthy Places agenda.
Recent work

In June 2023, the Healthy Places SIG coordinated a response on behalf of the FPH to the Environmental Outcomes Reports (EOR) consultation. The response advocated for population health to be included as a priority outcome in the revised version of the EOR following this consultation and can be found here.

Contact 

The Healthy Places Special Interest Group is chaired by Helen Elsey: helen.elsey@york.ac.uk and Dr Nina Amedzro: nina.amedzro1@nhs.net and reports to the Faculty's Health Improvement Committee.

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