Urban health indicators focus on the health impact of cities, including the physical urban environment.
There are many metrics about our quality of life, wellbeing and health. These measures can be used to understand the current status, set targets and judge progress.
We can use indicators for any of the following (1):
- understand a place and its impact on health to inform the development, monitoring and adjustment of urban policies
- compare places or success of policy programmes (e.g. within a city, across cities or internationally)
- support funding bids and/or decisions
- involve the community in agreeing priorities.
The value of indicators for communication
Here are a few examples where a headline figure helps to communicate a key challenge or opportunity.
Highlighting a problem
The first two examples show how indicators can highlight problems with the current state or proposed changes in the built environment.
<13% of new homes were located within walking distance of a railway, light rail or metro station
Royal Town Planning Institute (2016)
An analysis of planning permissions for new residential development in 12 city regions in England included data for 165,000 planned new homes.(2) Less than 13% were located within walking distance of a railway, light rail or metro station. Only 46% were located in an existing built-up area. This is likely to mean that many new homes are spatially disconnected from shops, schools, local services and convenient public transport. Residents of these new developments will probably rely on cars for the majority of their daily trips.
43% of British people are living in homes which do not meet the Living Home Standard.
Shelter
Shelter’s Living Home Standard highlighted the condition of housing in the UK. The standard looks at affordability, space, stability, decent conditions and neighbourhood – all of which are important for health. The charity has a dashboard that reports the percentage of homes that fail to meet the standard across different tenures and occupants’ characteristics (e.g. age, income, etc.).(3)
Measures of impact
The next few example shows how indicators can measure impact. The first is about the financial value of walkable neighbourhoods.
$4k – $34k Increased value of homes in highly walkable communities in USA
Cortright (2009)
A study of American cities found that houses with high walkability scores sold at values of $4,000 to $34,000 higher than homes with average walkability scores.(4) The walkability scores were measured by a tool called ‘Walk Score’ which is based on a combination of population density, access to services and street layout.
Finally, this last example looks at the physical activity levels of residents in a new development, which is important for health.
40-50 min/week more physical activity since moving to the new development
Kramer et al. (2014)
A master-planned community called Mueller in Austin, Texas included 5,700 homes. The new community was studied by researchers who found that residents in early phases increased their physical activity levels by 40-50 minutes per week.(5)
References
(1) Pineo, H., Zimmermann, N., Cosgrave, E., Aldridge, R.W., Acuto, M. and Rutter, H. (2018a) Promoting a healthy cities agenda through indicators: development of a global urban environment and health index. Cities & Health. 2 (1), pp. 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2018.1429180
(2) Royal Town Planning Institute, 2016. The location of development: Mapping planning permissions for housing in twelve English city-regions.
(3) http://www.shelter.org.uk/livinghomestandard
(4) Cortright, J., 2009. Walking the walk: How walkability raises home values in US cities. CEOs for Cities
(5) Kramer, A., Lassar, T.J., Federman, M., Hammerschmidt, S., 2014. Building for Wellness: The Business Case. Urban Land Institute, Washington DC.