Next week, the Healthy City Design International Congress, will bring together experts, including researchers from the University of Bath, to discuss how to create sustainable, healthy cities in a world of profound instability.

First held in 2017, the event – taking place in Salford, Greater Manchester, and online – brings together researchers, policymakers and practitioners working to place health and climate resilience at the heart of city development locally, nationally and globally.

Embedding health outcomes in decision-making

Dr Geoff Bates (Institute for Policy Research and Dr Eleanor Eaton (Department of Economics) will join Professor Sarah Ayres (University of Bristol) and colleagues from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to discuss how health outcomes can be better embedded in urban development decision-making across government.

Their work helps decision-makers to understand and assess the value of health impacts from changes to the urban environment. The collaboration between the Tackling Root Causes Upstream of Unhealthy Urban Development (TRUUD) project and MHCLG has led to the Health Appraisal of Urban Systems (HAUS) model being integrated into government guidance.

On the Congress, Dr Bates says: “We look forward to participating in this event alongside our partners in MHCLG and to hearing the perspectives and experiences of other attendees. We will be discussing the outcomes and impacts of our work to date, as well as reflecting on what makes for a successful collaboration between academia and government.”