Healthy Urban Places is a 4-year programme working with communities and local partners – such as Councils and the NHS – in Bradford and Liverpool. We want to understand how local urban places impact health and how this understanding can be used to help cities become healthier and happier places to live. Improving urban places has the potential to improve the health of local people, reduce inequalities in health experienced between different parts of cities and reduce demand for healthcare services. Our approach focuses on generating this understanding with people in a way which can influence policy and practice to make our urban places healthier for everyone.
Research in Community Collaboratives
Healthy Urban Places brings together researchers, residents and communities with local government, public services, voluntary and community sector organisations and businesses to co-produce research in two “Community Collaboratives”, one in Bradford and one in Liverpool. By involving those impacted by and responsible for decisions about local places, we aim to co-produce relevant and impactful research.
We will combine insights developed by our communities of what aspects they identify as important for health with available data on the health of the population, the local environment and communities to discover the key features (or combinations of features) that drive healthy urban places. We will also work with local partners to evaluate the impact of existing and future changes to places to understand the impact these changes have on health and wider society.
Our urban places
The research is taking place in two areas: Bradford District, in West Yorkshire and the Liverpool City Region. Both areas have rich histories, varied geographies and shared challenges.
Liverpool is the third most deprived local authority area (out of 317 areas) in England, and Bradford is the 13th most deprived. Many health and wellbeing measures in Liverpool and Bradford are also worse than the national and regional averages. Both areas experience high rates of child poverty, in Liverpool, 22% of children are living in poverty and in Bradford 1/3 of children are living in poverty.
We have chosen these places as they both have large research studies and connected data for over 3 million people which will help us understand how local places influence our health.
Consortium partners
Healthy Urban Places is hosted by Born-in-Bradford and is a consortium of ten organisations. Our partners are the University of Liverpool, Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Bradford Council Health Determinants Research Collaboration, Imperial College London, University of Basque Country, University of Bradford, University College London, University of Leeds and University of York.
Population Health Improvement UK
Healthy Urban Places is part of Population Health Improvement UK (PHI-UK), a national research network which works to transform health and reduce inequalities through change at the population level. Find out more about PHI-UK here: Population Health Improvement UK.
