Policy-making is complex and contested, and health is only one goal among many to be achieved through implementing urban planning policy. We researched the complexity of this process using a systems thinking approach, mapping out the value of urban health indicators in two case studies.
Key findings
- Creating and using urban health indicator tools increased inter-sectoral relationships, which supported different stakeholders to better understand each other’s opportunities and constraints.
- Relationships among stakeholders spurred new advocates for health in diverse organisations, supporting health-in-all-policies and whole-of-society approaches.
- Constraints to health-promoting policy and implementation (e.g. legal, political and economic in nature), were overcome through community involvement in urban health indicator tools and advocacy effectiveness.
- Some characteristics of indicator tools reduced their perceived relevance and authority, such as: a high number of available indicators, lack of neighbourhood scale data and poor-quality data.
In this research of activities in Melbourne (Australia) and San Francisco (USA), urban health indicator tools were a form of evidence that influenced local urban planning policy and decision-making when they were embedded in policy processes, networks and institutions.
Systems thinking approach
This research used systems thinking to map out participants’ mental models of how indicators were used in planning policy and decision-making. The image below is one of the causal loop diagrams produced in the research. It shows how inter-sectoral relationships led to increased urban planning policy that would be health-promoting.
References
(1) Pineo, H., Zimmermann, N. and Davies, M. (2020) Integrating health into the complex urban planning policy and decision-making context: a systems thinking analysis. Palgrave Communications. 6 (1), pp. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0398-3