Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
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This paper sets out a structured process for the co-production of knowledge between researchers and societal partners and illustrates its application in an urban health equity project in Accra, Ghana. The main insight of this approach is that research and knowledge co-production is always partial, both in the sense of being incomplete, as well as being circumscribed by the interests of participating researchers and societal partners. A second insight is that project-bound societal engagement takes place in a broader context of public and policy debate. ⋯ Building blocks are activities and interaction-based methods aimed at bringing together a range of participants involved in joint knowledge production. In practice, recursive iterations within loops may be limited due of constraints on time, resources, or attention. We suggest that co-production loops and building blocks are deployed flexibly.
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The incidence of lung cancer is affected by air pollution, especially in high-density urban areas with heavy road traffic and dense urban form. Several studies have examined the direct relationship between lung cancer incidence and road traffic as well as urban form. However, the results are still inconsistent for high-density urban areas. ⋯ The results showed that building coverage, averaged block perimeter area ratio, density of metro station without the glass barrier system, and the percentage of low-quality residential land were positively correlated with lung cancer incidence in the neighborhood, while population density was negatively correlated with lung cancer incidence. This study found a strong self-selection effect of socio-economic factors in the relationship between lung cancer incidence and greenness. These results may be useful for conducting health impact assessments and developing spatial planning interventions for respiratory health in high-density urban areas.
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This paper sets out the main findings from two rounds of interviews with senior representatives from the UK's urban development industry: the third and final phase of a 3-year pilot, Moving Health Upstream in Urban Development' (UPSTREAM). The project had two primary aims: firstly, to attempt to value economically the health cost-benefits associated with the quality of urban environments and, secondly, to interview those in control of urban development in the UK in order to reveal the potential barriers to, and opportunities for, the creation of healthy urban environments, including their views on the use of economic valuation of (planetary) health outcomes. Much is known about the 'downstream' impact of urban environments on human and planetary health and about how to design and plan healthy towns and cities ('midstream'), but we understand relatively little about how health can be factored in at key governance tipping points further 'upstream', particularly within dominant private sector areas of control (e.g. land, finance, delivery) at sub-national level. ⋯ There was no silver bullet however: 110 barriers and 76 opportunities were identified across a highly complex range of systems, actors and processes, including many possible points of targeted intervention for economic valuation. Eight main themes were identified as key areas for discussion and future focus. This findings paper is the second of two on this phase of the project: the first sets out the rationale, approach and methodological lessons learned.
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This paper sets out the rationale and process for the interviewing methodology utilized during a 3-year research pilot, 'Moving Health Upstream in Urban Development' (UPSTREAM). The project had two primary aims: firstly, to attempt to value economically the health cost benefits associated with the quality of urban environments and secondly, to engage with those in control of urban development in the UK in order to determine what are the barriers to and opportunities for creating healthy urban environments, including those identified through the utilisation of economic valuation. Engagement at senior level with those who have most control over key facets of planning and development implementation-such as land disposal, investment, development delivery and planning permission-was central to the approach, which encompassed the adoption of 'elite interviewing', a method developed in the USA in the 1950s and used in the political sciences but relatively unutilized in the health and environmental sciences [1]. ⋯ Having academic and practitioner research leads on an equal footing created some minor tensions, but it also appeared to strengthen the rigor of the approach through a broad knowledge of context 'in-house'. This form of co-production at times challenged academic traditions in qualitative analysis, but it also appeared to build trust with interviewees and provided greater clarity of the real-world context under investigation. Findings from this study are written up in a separate paper.