Public health spatial planning in practice: improving health and wellbeing

Abstract

With growing evidence of the links between the built environment and population health, there is an increasing demand for practical guides and toolkits to help decision-makers improve public health and address health inequalities. If anything, there is now a plethora of evidence reviews, guidance notes, and good practice cases available, often with overlapping advice (e.g. partnership boards, secondments), overused examples (e.g. Amsterdam as the cycling capital) and falling in the same common pitfalls (e.g. ignoring path-dependency, different planning regulations). What we need is a less of proliferation of the same, but more clarity, coherence, and practical guides that are based on case studies of contextualised planning practices, and chart possible pathways for good practices usable in that context. Therein lies the strength of Public Health Spatial Planning in Practice: Improving Health and Wellbeing, written by Michael Chao-Jung Chang, Liz Green and Carl Petrokofsky, and published by Bristol University Press in 2022. It doesn’t aim to review the evidence of the links between the built environment and population health – there are plenty of other books making the case very strongly. Instead, this book lays out a clear plan on how planning and health agendas can converge to deliver healthy placemaking. The authors build their case on established evidence, practices and frameworks in the first two parts and offer action plans and practice guides in the third and fourth parts with the use of ‘insider stories’ and real-world examples to illustrate healthy planning practices. The final part, horizon scanning, draws lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and provides insights for creating healthy places and communities. What sets this book apart is its attention to the minutiae of the planning system, with a view to embedding health and wellbeing throughout. This includes both the complex planning decision-making process (p. 156) and planning education and professional development (pp. 169–183). The latter was especially a key focus of the authors, who goes to define what they call a new interdisciplinary practice of public health spatial planning (Chapter 9), albeit with more public health than planning, and with more focus on procedural tools of spatial planning. The book also features important discussions on health inequalities, challenges of implementing Health Impact Assessment (p. 97), and novel ideas such as ‘net health gain’ (p. 209). Furthermore, it may have been helpful to have a more nuanced discussion of the differences between spatial planning and land-use management in practice (p. 39). Moreover, whilst it was tacitly acknowledged that more planners are now working in the private sector and Chapter 10 included benefits of healthy places to the private sector and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises, the evidence presented and recommendations made were strongly biased towards public bodies. This book is a must-read for built environment and health professionals, community groups, and individuals who are committed to addressing the health challenges of our time. Despite its UK focus and the fact that its advice may be better suited to countries with established regulatory regimes and where market forces and governance systems are more stable, the authors make an effort to link their findings to wider planning practices in both global North and South (pp. 54–66). The evidence and practices outlined will be useful and inspiring to anyone looking to make a positive impact.