Guidance

PHE Healthy Places

Updated 5 February 2021

Public Health England’s (PHE) Healthy Places team works to ensure that the design of the built and natural environment contributes to improving public health and reducing health inequalities. We aim to create healthier places by working across all levels of government, industry, professional communities and with the public. The team provides information, advice, guidance, and advocacy in the spheres of transport, spatial planning, housing, the natural environment and Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

This work is undertaken by:

• providing system leadership and advocacy
• building skills and capacity
• building networks and partnerships
• developing and accessing evidence

Both the built and natural environment are part of the wider determinants of health and wellbeing across the life course and have an influence on people’s physical and mental health, and on health inequalities. The quality of the built and natural environment can affect connectivity within a neighbourhood and people’s social networks, the location and quality of housing, exposure to air and noise pollution, safe and accessible transport and opportunities for active travel. It also plays a crucial role in promoting access to open space, employment and healthy food options.

Some of the UK’s most pressing health challenges – such as obesity, poor mental health issues, physical inactivity and the needs of an ageing population – are influenced by the built and natural environment. The planning, design, construction and management of spaces and places can help to promote good health, improve access to goods and services, and alleviate, or in some cases even prevent, poor health thereby having a positive impact on reducing health inequalities.

The Healthy Places team is based in the Priorities and Programmes Division of the Health Improvement Directorate. The programme works in partnership with local and national partners on a wide range of activities and is a hub for PHE’s activities on ‘place’. Shown below are the programme’s achievements to date.

1. Providing systems leadership and advocacy

The Healthy Places team provides system leadership and high-level engagement with other government departments, executive agencies and national stakeholder organisations to support a ‘health in all policies’ approach

Cross-government engagement, including with:

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)

• Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)

• Department for Transport (DfT)

• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)

• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)

• Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)

• Highways England

• Natural England (NE)

• Environment Agency (EA)

Examples of who we collaborate with:

• NICE, NHS England / Improvement, Health Education England

• National Parks England

• Sport England

• Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA)

• Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)

• Academic partners

• Improving Health and Care through the home: working with a significant number of housing organisations nationally

• Sustrans

• Living Streets

• Urban Transport Group

• Health Foundation

• The King’s Fund

• Wales Health Impact Assessment Support Unit (WHIASU)

2. Building skills and capacity

The Healthy Places team supports building skills and capacity and give confidence to local teams by providing a set of tools, training and learning events. The team holds regular webinars and delivers e-learning packages on a wide variety of topics, alongside regular speaking commitments at CPD events and conferences.

In 2019, we published with Health Education England (HEE) an eLearning module for health and social care practitioners who visit people at home so they can help individuals living in a cold or damp home access support.

Webinars

The Healthy Places team now hold regular webinars on the team’s key topic areas and presentations are recorded and uploaded with a record of the Q&A.

You can get information and register to attend through the Healthy Places community of practice on Knowledge Hub site.

Register as a member of PHE Healthy Places

Events and conferences

The Healthy Places team regularly contribute to or speak at a range of government, academic and professional events around the UK.

Important highlights from 2019 to 2020 include:

• Kings Fund and PHE, Homes and health: how housing and the NHS can work together

• PHE Annual Conference 2019

• British Medical Association Patient Liaison Symposium

• Healthy City International Design Congress

• Heads of Planning Scotland

To request a speaker or inform us of an upcoming event for which you would like collaboration or input, please email: healthyplaces@phe.gov.uk

3. Building networks and partnerships

The Healthy Places team maintains a strong communication network with partners from a wide range of national and local stakeholders, including with local public health teams.

This includes our ‘Improving Health and Care through the Home Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU), which brings together over 25 partner organisations and gives a shared commitment to joint action across government, health, social care and housing sectors to improve health through the home. To find out more view the MoU.

Stakeholder communications

The team maintains the PHE Healthy Places Knowledge Hub site, a forum for sharing information about creating and sustaining a healthy built and natural environment. Members include people from national and local government, professional bodies, academia and members of the public.

Register as a member of PHE Healthy Places

4. Developing and accessing evidence

The Healthy Places team supports the development of, access to, and translation, of the research evidence base for PHE and local teams by working at the interface between academia, policy and practitioners, including harnessing opportunities for co-production of publications, workshops and other initiatives.

The team has recently published briefings and co-produced and commissioned publications. Please see below for full list.

Publications since 2013

Evidence submissions

• LGA: submission to the LGA Housing Commission (2016)

• House of Lords Select Committee on the built environment health evidence review (2015)

Planning and the built environment

• PHE and partners: Healthy weight environments: using the planning system (2020)

• PHE and UWE: Spatial planning and health: Getting Research into Practice (2020)

• NHS: Putting Health into Place (2019) – programme findings from the Healthy New Towns programme

• NHS: Putting Health into Place: Introducing NHS England’s Healthy New Towns programme (2018)

• PHE and IHE: Healthy High Streets: good place-making in an urban setting (2018)

• TCPA: Securing constructive collaboration and consensus for planning healthy developments: A report from the Developers and Wellbeing project (2018)

• PHE: Spatial planning for health (2017)

• PHE: Health and environmental impact assessment: a briefing for public health teams in England (2017)

• UWE: Healthy people healthy places evidence tool: Evidence and practical linkage for design, planning and health (2017)

• LGA and TCPA: building the foundations − tackling obesity through planning and development (2016)

• TCPA: planning healthy weight environments guide (2014)

• TCPA: planning healthier places report (2013)

• PHE: Obesity and the environment: regulating the growth of fast food takeaways (2013)

Housing and homelessness

• eLearning module (2019) for healthcare professionals who visit patients in their homes to enable them to spot the signs of cold and damp homes

• ‘Improving health through the home’: a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support joint action (2018)

• PHE collection of housing resources ‘Housing for Health’(2017)

• Housing Infographics (2017)

• Homelessness: applying All Our Health (2016)

• Care & Repair England, Better Care Fund briefing (2016)

• Homeless Link: housing and TB resource (2016)

• Housing LIN Dementia and housing: An assessment tool for local commissioning (2016)

• Housing LIN. Older people and alcohol misuse: Helping people stay in their homes (2016)

• Housing LIN, End of Life Care: Helping people to be cared for and die at home (2016)

• Housing LIN, Active Ageing and the Built Environment (2016)

• Housing Association Charitable Trust (HACT): Standards for evidence generation (2016)

• Homeless Link, Preventing homelessness to improve health and wellbeing (2015).

• Homeless Link, Homeless health needs audit tool (2015)

• Care & Repair England, Home Adaptations, Integration and the Care Act (2015)

• Care & Repair England, Disabled Facilities Grant Funding via Better Care Funds (2015)

• Building Research Establishment (BRE), Homes and ageing in England (2015)

• Sitra: Public Health: Housing Workforce Holds the Key (2015)

• IHE, Fuel Poverty and cold home-related health problems (2014)

• ‘Improving health through the home’: a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support joint action (2014)

Natural environment

• Improving access to greenspace: a new review for 2020 (2020)

• A rapid scoping review of health and wellbeing evidence for the Framework of Green Infrastructure Standards (2020)

Active travel and transport

• Cycling and walking for individual and population health benefits A rapid evidence review for health and care system decision-makers (2018)

• PHE: working together to promote active travel – a briefing for local authorities (2016)

• PHE: Obesity and the environment briefing: increasing physical activity and active travel (2013)

Contact us

If you are working on improving health by addressing the built and natural environment, the Healthy Places team would like to hear from you. You can reach us at healthyplaces@phe.gov.uk