Healthy streetlife: An ecologic exploration of residents' health practices in the street environment

Drane, Mark

Abstract

Background

Good health is a human right and the built environment is recognised as a wider determinant of health but many studies focus only on physical health not mental or social health. The street is a microscale of the built environment yet relatively overlooked in the literature. Additionally, built environment practice tends to focus on the physical over the social and exclude residents’ knowledge.

Methodology

During the Covid-19 pandemic this qualitative research investigated residential streets as a health setting. Residents’ everyday health practices were explored within the socio-ecologic paradigm and transdisciplinary knowledge was created using a constructivist-interpretivist epistemology. Data comprised semi-structured interviews with participants (n=20), street observations (n=18), and desktop data. Data analysis included a modified reflexive thematic analysis and ecologic analysis.

Findings

The street is evidenced as a health setting. Findings are reported for the street as a physical and social environment linked to health-related outcomes. Characteristics of the street physical environment (n=61) are reported in themes (n=11): bike hire and storage; car charging and parking; cycle lane and cycle friendliness; green space, planting, river, and trees; living space; street holistic, layout, dimensions; sun, temperature, wind; visual appearance, housing design, materials, views; waste; sounds from street; and specific buildings on street.

The street social environment is reported through everyday health practices (n=50) in themes (n=6): being in green space and nature in the street; the street as a social space; neighbourly things to do; getting everyday necessities done; getting from A to B in the street; and the streetlives of children, parents, and adults.

The street is a domain of transdisciplinary knowledge. Complex and ecologic pathways to health impact in the residential street are reported.

Conclusion

This thesis contributes an outward demand to address residential streets as health settings: to co-create streets reflective of the diversity, complexity, and interconnectedness of contemporary societies, whilst promoting social justice and community wellbeing. Healthy streets prioritise local knowledge and link to other settings including Healthy Cities from the grassroots. A translational urbanism is proposed to be operationalised through Transdisciplinary CoLabs.

The research contributes a new approach, new methods, new data, understudied areas (spatial and temporal), and new findings. Recommendations for policy, practice, and research are made. This thesis is an original contribution and a call to take the socio-ecologic paradigm of health further: addressing not just the wider determinants of health, but the wider, wider determinants of health.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 26, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 12, 2024
• Keywords: health, healthy urbanism, streetlife, urbanism, public health, wider determinants
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11075727
• Award Date: Aug 12, 2024