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The Lancet Global Health 2022 Series on Urban Design, Transport and Health
About the Series
Good city planning produces co-benefits for individual and planetary health and wellbeing. In 2016, a Series on Urban Design, Transport and Health was published in The Lancet, drawing attention to the importance of integrated upstream city planning policies as a pathway to creating healthy and sustainable cities. City planning policies determine the local built environment and transport features that influence transportation choices and affect exposures to health risk and protective factors. The 2016 Lancet Series proposed a set of city planning indicators that could be used to benchmark and monitor cities.
The Lancet Global Health Series on Urban Design, Transport, and Health, published in May 2022, follows up on the 2016 Series in The Lancet. In this new Series, we demonstrate how those indicators can be used to measure urban design and transport policies and features in cities.
We present the results of a 3.5 year case study in 25 cities in 19 lower-middle and high-income countries where we conducted policy analysis and assessed built environment and transport features using geospatial indicators. We also identified thresholds for built environment interventions that could help achieve the World Health Organization’s target for increasing physical activity by 15% by 2030. Through this new Series in The Lancet Global Health, we show how the indicators can guide decisions about what must change in order to create healthy and sustainable cities; how research can be used to guide urban policy to achieve urban and population health; create tools so that cities can replicate our indicators, and explore ‘what next’ is needed to create healthy and sustainable cities, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
Series articles
Giles-Corti, B., Moudon, A. V., Lowe, M., Adlakha, D., Cerin, E., Boeing, G., Higgs, C., Arundel, J., Liu, S., Hinckson, E., Salvo, D., Adam, M. A., Badland, H., Florindo, A. A., Gebel, K., Hunter, R. F., Mitáš, J., Oyeyemi, A. L., Puig-Ribera, A., Queralt, A., Santos, M. P., Schipperijn, J., Stevenson, M., van Dyck, D., Callejo, G. V., & Sallis, J. F. (2022). Creating healthy and sustainable cities: what gets measured, gets done. The Lancet Global Health, May 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00070-5
Lowe, M., Adlakha, D., Sallis, J. F., Salvo, D., Cerin, E., Moudon, A. V., Higgs, C., Hinckson, E., Arundel, J., Boeing, G., Liu, S., Mansour, P., Gebel, K., Puig-Ribera, A., Mishra, P. B., Bozovic, T., Carson, J., Dygrýn, J., Florindo, A. A., Ho, T. P., Hook, H., Hunter, R. F., Lai, P. C., Molina-García, J., Nitvimol, K., Oyeyemi, A. L., Ramos, C. D. G., Resendiz, E., Troelsen, J., Witlox, F., & Giles-Corti, B. (2022). City planning policies to support health and sustainability: an international comparison of policy indicators for 25 cities. The Lancet Global Health, May 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00069-9
Cerin, E., Sallis, J. F., Salvo, D., Hinckson, E., Conway, T. L., Owen, N., van Dyck, D., Lowe, M., Higgs, C., Moudon, A. V., Adam, M. A., Cain, K. L., Christiansen, L. B., Davey, R., Dygrýn, J., Frank, L. D., Reis, R., Sarmiento, O. L., Adlakha, D., Boeing, G., Liu, S., & Giles-Corti, B. (2022). Determining thresholds for spatial urban design and transport features to create healthy and sustainable cities: findings from the IPEN Adult study. The Lancet Global Health, Accepted May 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00068-7
Boeing, G., Higgs, C., Liu, S., Giles-Corti, B., Sallis, J. F., Cerin, E., Lowe, M., Adlakha, D., Hinckson, E., Moudon, A. V., Salvo, D., Adams, M. A., Barrozo, L. V., Bozovic, T., Callejo, G. V., Delclòs-Alió, X., Dygrýn, J., Ferguson, S., Gebel, K., Ho, T. P., Lai, P., Martori, J. C., Nitvimol, K., Queralt, A., Roberts, J. D., Sambo, G. H., Schipperijn, J., Vale, D., Van de Weghe, N., & J, A. (2022). Using Open Data and Open-Source Software to Develop Spatial Indicators of Urban Design and Transport Features for Achieving Healthy and Sustainable Cities. The Lancet Global Health, May 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00072-9
Giles-Corti, B., Moudon, A. V., Lowe, M., Cerin, E., Boeing, G., Frumkin, H., Salvo, D., Foster, S., Kleeman, A., Bekessy, S., Hérick de Sá, T., Nieuwenhuijsen, M., Higgs, C., Hinckson, E., Adlakha, D., Arundel, J., Liu, S., Oyeyemi, A. L., Nitvimol, K., & Sallis, J. F. (2022). What next? Expanding our view of city planning and global health, and implementing and monitoring evidence-informed policy. The Lancet Global Health, May 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00066-3
Click here to download an infographic summarizing the key findings of the 2022 series of urban planning, transport and health in The Lancet Global Health.
Series launch events
The Lancet Global Health Series on Urban Design, Transport and Health launches on May 10, 2022. Two webinars will take place as part of the launch activities, and are open to the public. If you are interested in attending, please register here (May 10) or here (May 12).
In addition to the official Series launch by The Lancet Global Health, a series of local events to disseminate the methods and findings presented in this new Series will take place across the globe, as follows:
City
Adelaide
Date
20-Sep-2022
Time
To be confirmed
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*More local events to be confirmed
Local launch event videos
Other publications
Liu, S., Higgs, C., Arundel, J., Boeing, G., Cerdera, N., Moctezuma, D., Cerin, E., Adlakha, D., Lowe, M. Giles-Corti, B. A Generalized Framework for Measuring Pedestrian Accessibility around the World Using Open Data. Geographical Analysis. 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gean.12290 (published journal version)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.08814.pdf (authors’ preprint – open access)