What is URBHealthS?

URBHealthS is an EiT Health sponsored project which brings together multidisciplinary experts who want to improve URBan HEALTH trainingS for technicians and trainers. In 2020 the project will be running across Newcastle upon Tyne, Madrid and Coimbra with a training programme running in each of the three cities.

URB-HealthS relies on the role of the built environment as support for healthier cities and health behaviour change. Urban design and planning can encourage healthy lifestyles, but requires a better understanding of the impact that urban planning has on health. The challenge is to enhance actionable policy and to engage local technicians and professionals on urban health issues in order to promote opportunities for improving global urban health outcomes.

Stage 1 of the project saw two rounds of delphi surveys being sent to current practitioners and experts in the worlds of Architecture, Planning, Research and Public Health to garner opinion on current issues and current training provisions amongst many other areas. The results of these surveys have been used to inform the training programme.

Stage 2 is the programme itself. Split into four modules, each led by an expert in their field, it is aimed at professionals in planning and public health. Due to the Coronavirus the prgramme has transitioned to an online delivery and will consist of two half day sessions looking at 

• Policy, Plans & Frameworks
• Multicriteria tools for analysis & evaluation 
• Action plans & Guidelines 
• Best practice