The Urban Health Council’s role is to establish the appropriate knowledge infrastructure at the city policy, practice and advocacy level that improves urban health. A unique research programme is delivered through reports, workshops and other learning tools.

The Council engages private, public and third sector organisations together to progress industry practices, support research direction, and positively influence policy interventions on public health.

{a working definition}

Urban health is a term used to investigate the intersectional lived experiences of urban dwellers. It focuses on the unique influence urbanisation has on our biological systems through exposure to environmental and psychosocial stressors.

1. Reframe health as an ecological phenomena

2. Create awareness about the link between the places we inhabit and health outcomes

3. Provide a public health service which supports equitable healing futures

4. Committed to playing our role in identifying and ending the factors that lead to health inequities

5. Providing an equitable community and ecosystem for citizen and practitioner. The more of us come together, the faster we heal.

At the beginning of each year the research team propose 4 themes of work at a virtual town hall. Members are invited to comment, share insights and directly offer to contribute. Throughout the year reports are produced from the themes and published online, allowing members and others to access at any point.

Every 6 weeks a workshop from 1 of the two work-streams takes place online via Zoom. At the beginning of each new quarter an introductory virtual town-hall is held introducing the Urban Health Council, past work, what’s coming up, offering a Q&A session allowing people to get the most from the Urban Health Council.

ADVOCACY

refers to those who are addressing major structural issues that will benefit from high quality usable research. This includes policy influencers and campaigners who are supported by additional insights and relationships to further their work.

PLACE

refers to those (mostly) creating solutions within places and cities. This includes built environment practitioners and spatially minded organisations and campaigners who are concerned with how to apply new insights to specific problems relating to place and health.

We are citizen and public grant funded programme which means that we are able to guide our science outside the influence of governing bodies, who can often steer science towards a top down narrative and agenda.

It also allows us to keep our research open, creating democratic access to valuable scientific information about health that is of public interest.

In November 2022 Impact on Urban Health partnered as an anchor funder to help the Urban Health Council’s growth and impact strategy. We would like to say a special thank you to the National Lottery Community Fund, which has helped us engage with communities around the UK in 2021 to learn more about the science behind health outcomes.