A range of people with a stake or an interest in city development came together at the Architecture Centre in the centre of Bristol for an event held as part of Bristol Healthy City Week. The event, called ‘Developing Healthy Neighbourhoods: Build-in health or build more hospitals’, brought together 63 people on 18 October 2016 to discuss a great health paradox that plagues cities all over the world, including Bristol.
The problem presents itself as a continual rise in pressure on health services simultaneously to research uncovering the uncomfortable truth that we build the risk factors for illness into our modern towns and cities. And yet, in this paradoxical situation, the health of individuals and communities is not put as top priority when we build new places or regenerate old ones.
Worse still, although there are countless checklists, guidelines, fine words, and even emerging international standards, ‘building-in’ health is:
This event sought to test if Bristol had stakeholders who were enthusiastic and capable to develop an innovative response to development that could be piloted. The answer was a resounding yes.
Introduced by Bristol City Council Cabinet Member for Health Fi Hance, and included provocations from:
These questions were responded to by six experts working in various fields related to development, health and wellbeing:
The event was hosted by IBI Group in collaboration with Bristol Health Partners SHINE Health Integration Team as part of Healthy City Week.
Download the full report (PDF) to find out what happened at the event.