Making the Case and Getting Underway: A Funder Toolkit to Support Healthy People in Healthy Places

This toolkit was created as part of the Health Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership (www.convergencepartnership.org) to help funders create multi-field environmental change strategies to enhance healthy eating and active living

Putting Health at the Heart of Local Planning Through an Integrated Municipal Health Strategy

As a cross-sectoral issue, the promotion of health needs to be addressed across all policies. In Portugal, as more competencies are being transferred to local governments, the integration of health considerations into municipal plans remains a challenge and guidance on how to develop an integrated municipal health strategy is absent. The aim of this study is to describe the conceptual and methodological approach that informed the development of an integrated and multisectoral municipal health strategy in the City of Coimbra. Its design followed a population health approach with a geographic lens, looking at how the population's health outcomes and health determinants were geographically distributed across the municipality, as well as the extent to which policies from multiple sectors can address them. The planning cycle followed an iterative workflow of five actions: assessing, prioritizing, planning, implementing, and monitoring. Following a participatory planning approach, several participatory processes were conducted involving local stakeholders and citizens (e.g., population-based surveys, workshops, Delphi, collaborative sessions) to identify problems, establish priorities, and define measures and actions. The strategic framework for action integrates 94 actions across multisectoral domains of municipal intervention: sustainable mobility and public places, safe and adequate housing, accessible healthcare, social cohesion and participation, education and health literacy, and intersectoral and collaborative leadership. Findings shed light on important aspects that can inform other municipal strategies, such as the adoption of a place-based approach, focused on geographic inequalities, health determinants and stakeholder participation, and the application of a health in all policies framework

Regenerating Urban Spaces under Place-specific Social Contexts: a Commentary on Green Infrastructures for Landscape Conservation

This study investigates the issue of green infrastructures in contemporary cities, adopting a strategic vision for increasingly complex metropolitan regions. Green infrastructures play an important role in ecological services and biodiversity preservation, improving significantly the quality of life of residents and visitors. The social dimension of gardens and parks at local (e.g. urban district) scale and green infrastructures at larger spatial scales is also addressed, fostering the relationship between local communities and urban landscapes. With economic crisis, urban parks are increasingly considered a primary component of integrated strategies for urban regeneration with a bottom-up approach, addressing the demand for "natural landscape" in peri-urban areas. By recovering public spaces with social purposes and providing a comprehensive strategy for aesthetic improvement of common goods, the analyzed case studies give examples of specific measures for promoting environment-friendly urban regeneration strategies under place-specific social contexts

HEALTH | CENTER JAMAICA, NEW YORK: DESIGN IN PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY WELLNESS

This thesis is a series of conjectures on the potential for architectural and urban form to positively influence the health and wellness of a community in Jamaica, New York. The proposition examines the relationship between site, building, and context at multiple scales, providing a vision for the physical and sociocultural revival of a historically significant urban center whose identity is threatened by visionless development and whose population of residents is suffering from increasing rates of chronic health problems. This thesis contends that urban revitalization can be used as a mechanism for stimulating the advancement of healthy lifestyles within the population surrounding the project site. The site selected as the vehicle for investigation is the Downtown District of Jamaica, Queens in New York City with a focus on the redevelopment of the site and immediate urban context of the former Mary Immaculate Hospital, vacated in early 2009

Restoring Health to Health Reform: Integrating Medicine and Public Health to Advance the Population\u27s Wellbeing

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a major achievement in improving access to health care services. However, evidence indicates that the nation could achieve greater improvements in health outcomes, at a lower cost, by shifting its focus to public health. By focusing nearly exclusively on health care, policy makers have chronically starved public health of adequate and stable funding and political support. The lack of support for public health is exacerbated by the fact that health care and public health are generally conceptualized, organized, and funded as two separate systems. In order to maximize gains in health status and to spend scarce health resources most effectively, health care and public health should be treated as two interactive parts of a single, unified health system. The core purpose of health reform ought to be the improvement of the population’s health. We propose five criteria that would significantly advance this goal: prevention and wellness, human resources, a strong and sustainable health infrastructure, robust performance measurement, and reduction of health disparities. Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes provisions addressing these criteria, population health is not a central focus of the reform. In order to guide health reform implementation and to inform future health reform efforts, we offer three major policy reforms: changing the environment to incentivize healthy behavioral choices, strengthening the public health infrastructure at the state and local levels, and developing a health-in-all policies strategy that would engage multiple agencies in improving health incomes. Adopting these reforms would facilitate integration and dramatically improve the population’s health, particularly when compared to the health gains likely to be realized from a continued focus on access to health care services

Toward the Development of Egyptian Cities A Proposed Reference Guide for Developing the Visual Image of Egyptian Cities in 2050

This research paper focuses on the developments and changes in the design and shaping of Egyptian cities and their visual image. A discussion of the prevalent urban patterns and trends and the development of the Egyptian city’s visual image is followed by an appraisal of the future vision of Egypt in 2050. The paper reviews principal recent developments, mechanisms of implementing sustainability and their effect on new cities and emerging urban planning principles to determine the impact of recent developments on the visual image of the Egyptian city. A proposed reference guide for the visual image of the capital city follows. Results and recommendations are presented in the final section of the paper. Keywords: Urban Development, Egyptian Cities, Visual Image, future vision for new cities

Belfast THRI[VES]: Transformative Health and Regeneration Initiatives [for Vibrancy, Equality, and Sustainability]:Project Report

Belfast THRI[VES] is a pilot collaboration between Ulster University’s Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment, the School of Psychology, and Bamford Centre for Mental Health &amp; Wellbeing, working with Operational Partners from Belfast City Council’s City Regeneration &amp; Development Division and The Department for Infrastructure. The project was funded through Belfast City Council via the Department for Communities COVID-19 Recovery Revitalisation Programme, and the Department for Infrastructure. This report represents the overall project findings, literature reviews, case studies, lessons and recommendations. Examining how the City Centre can be an improved, inclusive, and innovative place for future generations, THRI[VES] argues for liveability as a unique framework to evaluate and deliver projects within and/or impacting on the public realm, primarily, through enhanced wellbeing priorities. It also investigates the role of public-private engagement to reframe wellbeing-based criteria and more effectively connect statutory and tactical regeneration process to more informal bottom-up evidence-based considerations that can collectively address and develop innovative solutions to tackle health, climate-change, and socio-economic stresses. Four objectives structure the synthesis and presentation of report findings to:• Assist Council-Executive goals to develop effective public decision-making processes to reimagine greener, healthier, more vibrant city spaces (in line with A Bolder Vision aspirations).• Identify areas for improved cross-sector data-sharing on wellbeing, sustainability, and resilience.• Develop evidence-based proposals to improve public-space policy and decision-making.• Propose new data-sharing platforms and future collaborations to inform more effective evidence-based policy, design, and post-evaluation of new public realm projects for wellbeing.Focusing on Belfast city centre, primary evidence, literature reviews, and international precedents provide wider lessons about urban governance and place-management at different scales of development including: • smaller projects (pop-ups, parklets, and meanwhile type examples) • neighbourhood-wide visioning and masterplanning proposals, and• city-wide to regional and national planning and regeneration project development policy.The above project levels, discussed in report examples, acknowledge how all development and policy are interconnected, impacted by complex spatial and community decisions for local/national governing bodies. The report highlights a need for greater shared understandings and collaboration amongst all policymakers, professionals, and the public about the terms, data, and co-production processes that inform both urban and rural development. The findings, discussions, and summary recommendations – set out below and expanded upon in the concluding chapter- are thus seen as a starting point to help improve placemaking for greater liveability and sustainable livelihood in Belfast and all villages, towns, and city centres. Ulster University Academic Research Team and Belfast City Council PartnersBelfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment:Dr Saul Golden, PI, Lecturer in Architecture &amp; Spatial DesignDr Gavan Rafferty, Co-I Lecturer in Spatial Planning and DevelopmentProfessor Gerry Leavey, Co-I, Director, Bamford Centre for Mental Health and WellbeingBelfast City Council City Regeneration &amp; Development Dr Callie Persic, Development Manager Ms Niamh Mulrine, Regeneration Project Officer<br/

Integrating Gardening as a Tool to Teach the Concept of Sustainability to Elementary School Students

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic in today’s society. Society as a whole benefits from having an environmentally conscious citizen who can make an informed impact on social issues involving natural resources. As future educators, it is our responsibility to provide learners with the knowledge and skills required to become an active part of repairing our planet. Research suggests that school gardens can be a powerful tool in promoting outdoor education, encouraging positive peer relationships, and building strong communities, while teaching sustainability concepts. I propose teachers who receive school support, collaborate with committed volunteers, and acquire access to the appropriate resources are prepared to confidently educate students on ecological conservation through school gardens