Organisers: WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION Collaborating Centre and the Department of Architecture, UWE, with AMPS. In collaboration with the Public Health Film Society.
Keynote 1: Christopher Shaw. Chair, Architects for Health
Keynote 2: Faculty of Public Health (TBC)

The World Health Organisation identifies the world’s rush to urbanization represents major threats and challenges to personal and public health. It identifies the ‘urban health threat’ as three-fold: infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases; and violence and injury from, amongst other things, road traffic. Within this tripartite structure of health issues in the built environment are multiple individual issues affecting both the developed and the developing worlds and the global north and south.

In informal settlements the poor design and maintenance of sanitary systems is linked with TB, pneumonia and diarrhoeal disease. The industrial expansion of countries like China and India has increased urban pollution exponentially. In the UK, where this event is held, almost 2 million people live with sight loss. Obesity levels are at an all-time high. Dementia is increasing. Heart disease is linked to sedentary lifestyles and asthma has been connected with traffic congestion.

Our health and how we live in our homes, streets, neighbouroods and cities cannot be divorced. However, the health issues connected to the built environment are also a social and political problem. Demographic changes, lifestyle preferences and government funding priorities all impact the health of life in cities: an ageing population is increasingly house bound; changing neighborhood patterns erode community support systems; investment in roads increases pollution and makes cities less walkable… and more.

Interdisciplinary Themes:

This conference reflects a broad set of interrelated concerns about health and the places we inhabit. It seeks to better understand the interconnectedness and potential solutions to the problems associated with health and the built environment.

To that end, it draws together health professionals, government representatives, social scientists, anthropologists, architects and urban planners. It is open to various debates, examples of which could include, but are not limited to: healthy homes, walkable cities, design for ageing, dementia and the built environment, health equality and urban poverty, community health services, neighbourhood support and wellbeing, urban sanitation and communicable disease, the role of transport infrastructures and government policy, and the cost implications of ‘unhealthy’ cities etc.

These multiple issues will be organized into strands seeking to facilitate ‘joined-up’ thinking about health and the built environment across disciplines, across scales and across countries.

Highlight Notice – Film:

In particular, this event picks up on work with film being carried out at UWE and continues a collaboration between AMPS and the Public Health Film Society. It this welcomes presentations by short and feature length film makers, screenings and debates filtered through short film projects.

Highlight Notice – Housing:

As part of the AMPS research programme Housing – Critical Futures, this event particularly welcomes submissions dealing with questions of heath and housing. More information.