2006 - A year of health and planning

EVENTS IN the real worlds of human health and of global sustainability seem to have stepped up a pace. In tandem,the ‘constructed’ worlds of ‘public health’ and ‘planning’ are struggling – not struggling to keep up; but struggling to meet up. This article tracks a year in the life of a small research centre that has been at the heart of the planning-health domain for nearly ten years. The Collaborating Centre, designated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Healthy Cities Campaign, is part of the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol. It is one of only two collaborating centres in the world based within a builtenvironment faculty, expressly linking health with design and planning

Does attending a charter school Reduce the likelihood of being placed into special education? Evidence from Denver, Colorado

We use administrative data to measure whether attending a charter school in Denver, Colorado, reduces the likelihood that students are newly classified as having a disability in primary grades. We employ an observational approach that takes advantage of Denver’s Common Enrollment System, which allows us to observe each school that the student listed a preference to attend. We find evidence that attending a Denver charter school reduces the likelihood that a student is classified as having a specific learning disability, which is the largest and most subjectively diagnosed disability category. We find no evidence that charter attendance reduces the probability of being classified as having a speech or language disability or autism, which are two more objectively diagnosed classifications.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this research came from The Searle Freedom Trust. (The Searle Freedom Trust)http://sites.bu.edu/marcuswinters/files/2017/09/Does-Charter-Attendence-Reduce-Likelihood-of-SPED-Placement.pdfhttp://sites.bu.edu/marcuswinters/files/2017/09/Does-Charter-Attendence-Reduce-Likelihood-of-SPED-Placement.pdfAccepted manuscrip

Are low-performing students more likely to exit charter schools? Evidence from New York City and Denver, Colorado

A common criticism of charter schools is that they systematically remove or “counsel out” their lowest performing students. However, relatively little is currently known about whether low-performing students are in fact more likely to exit charter schools than surrounding traditional public schools. We use longitudinal student-level data from two large urban school systems that prior research has found to have effective charter school sectors–New York City and Denver, Colorado–to evaluate whether there is a differential relationship between low-performance on standardized test scores and the probability that students exit their schools by sector attended. We find no evidence of a differential relationship between prior performance and the likelihood of exiting a school by sector. Low-performing students in both cities are either equally likely or less likely to exit their schools than are student in traditional public schools.We would like to thank the Denver Public School System for providing the data necessary for this paper, and we especially appreciated the assistance of Josh Drake, Yu-lu Hsiung, and Alisha Anuscencion. Funding for this project comes from the Searle Charitable Trust. We thank the Foundation for its support, but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented are our own and do not necessarily represent those of the Foundation. All remaining errors are our own. (Searle Charitable Trust)http://sites.bu.edu/marcuswinters/files/2017/09/Exiting-Charter-Schools.pdfAccepted manuscrip

A Future for Foster Youth - Opening the Doors for the Next Generation

The issue of foster children aging out of care and services has been an issue for quite some time. There are many concerns related to their care and needs. While in the foster care system, services and programs are typically tailored to help support these children and get them to 18 years old. College is often available and paid for to help those aging out of foster care, but what happens to those who do not take that path? College can be stressful and challenging for students with a strong support system. Those aging out of foster care often have limited support systems. These individuals encounter many challenges in their life, and it impacts them personally as well as economically. Acknowledgment of the needs of individuals aging out of foster care and entering the adult world is a tremendous issue that must be addressed. This paper aims to explore the needs of these individuals by looking at current programs implemented to help with entering the world. Additionally, exploring new programs to help give nearing and former aging out foster children a better opportunity to learn skills that can aid them personally and professionally in the real world. By understanding the foster care system’s inner workings, the research aims to elicit an understanding of the issues that have been dealt with and showcase emerging issues that threaten the futures of current foster children. There have been increasing numbers of incarcerated foster children, becoming addicts, and unemployed over the years due to a lack of programs to help them before, during, and after they age out. New strategies and programs must be implemented to prepare them for this life adjustment. Ultimately, this will allow them to gain skills, confidence, support, and the tools to help them build a successful future for themselves

Bringing public health into built environment education

This guide is aimed at all built environment educators, showing what the key issues are in terms of improving healthunderstanding in the built environment professions. It will explain the relevance, show how the built environment impacts on health and its implications for educationand provide examples of good practice in teaching.By making these connections, graduates should be emerging into the workplace with a good understanding of the healthimpacts of their professional work and be equipped with techniques and examples to help them deliver healthier places in the future.The guide draws on the work of the Education Network for Healthier Settlements, a group of built environmenteducators from the UK and beyond who are developing ways to reconnect health and the built environment in theprofessions

Natural medicine for planners

Caroline Brown and Marcus Grant review the evidence of links between urban nature and human health and well-being - and recommend ways in which planners can play doctor and use nature itself as an urban medicine

Understanding the role of universities in the European Healthy Cities Programme

The WHO Collaborating Centre is a founder member of HAVEN, a European consortium of universities and healthy cities set up to provide academic support to the European Healthy City Network (EHCN). In order to identify which ‘healthy city’ goals and activities have the most potential for support and collaboration, a survey was carried out across the whole network of 84 cities. It asked who their key partners were and what sort of knowledge and academic input they needed to enable them to best achieve the aims of the WHO Healthy Cities programme. The survey also explored existing connections with academia in order to identify what types of collaboration currently flourished

Building health into our plans from the start: Report and review of the health impact assessment workshop on the Knowle West Regeneration Strategy; Wednesday 21 July 2010

Knowle West in South Bristol has a population of about 15,000 and was mostly built in the 1920s and 1950s. Although for many Knowle West is a great place to live and there is a strong sense of community, it has high levelsof deprivation, with some parts of it being in the poorest 1% nationally. Filwood, in the heart of Knowle West, has the second lowest score under the Bristol Quality of Life Survey Liveability Index and there are significant healthchallenges. Life expectancy is the second lowest in Bristol, with high levels of cancer mortality and heart disease mortality. The level of obesity is one of thehighest in Bristol, as is the level of smoking.Work started on the Knowle West Regeneration Strategy in September 2009 and the vision for the area was agreed as “A community full of confidence and pride, skilled and healthy, living in a thriving Bristol neighbourhood that isgreen and well connected and low in living costs” – known as the ‘Knowle West Vision 2030’.With major change proposed for Knowle West, the Healthy City Group of the Bristol Partnership considers it vital that health and well-being in its widest sense is integrated into the regeneration plans. Therefore the group has initiated a health impact assessment (HIA) process to review potential health impacts. This report is based on a participatory workshop for the draft Knowle West Regeneration Strategy. The workshop looked at the wider social, economic and environmental foundations for health and well-being – how housing, transport, employment, open space etc impact on people’s health – rather than being limited to the provision of health services.The workshop took place on 21 July 2010 and was attended by 36 people, including local residents, local workers, strategic policy makers, service providers and a local councillor. Marcus Grant and Hugh Barton from theWHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Cities and Urban Policy at the University of West of England (UWE) facilitated the process.The workshop used the Spectrum Approach for participatory HIA. This provides a quick but holistic overview of a particular development project from a health and sustainability standpoint. It does not weight one criterion against another (which implies trade-offs), but rather identifies an acceptable bottom line in relation to each criterion. It involves a set of agreed health criteria,systematic evaluation and a colour-coded grading system