Laurence Carmichael Laurence.Carmichael@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer
Healthy buildings for a healthy city: Is the public health evidence base informing current building policies?
Carmichael, Laurence; Prestwood, Emily; Marsh, Rachael; Ige, Janet; Williams, Ben; Pilkington, Paul; Eaton, Eleanor; Michalec, Aleksandra
Authors
Emily Prestwood
Dr Rachael McClatchey rachael.mcclatchey@uwe.ac.uk
Consultant in Public Health
Janet Ige Janet.Ige@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Public Health
Dr Ben Williams Ben3.Williams@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Research Fellow in Air Quality Management
Dr Paul Pilkington Paul.Pilkington@uwe.ac.uk
Visiting Professor in Public Health
Eleanor Eaton
Aleksandra Michalec
Abstract
Research has demonstrated that housing quality is a key urban intervention in reducing health risks and improving climate resilience, addressing a key ambition of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Yet housing quality remains a problem even in high income countries such as England. In particular, hazards such as excess cold, excess heat and lack of ventilation leading to damp and mould have been identified as a major issue in homes. Research shows that these hazards can lead to a range of health conditions, such as respiratory and cardiovascular disease, infections and mental health problems. This article explores the use of public health research and evidence in policy to regulate new buildings in England to deliver improved public health, climate resilience and a reduced carbon footprint, in particular exploring the policy drivers and awareness of the public health evidence. Findings show that public health evidence is hardly referenced in policy and that the focus on other evidence bases such as on climate mitigation in building regulations results in both positive and negative impacts on health. This reflects a lack of a systems approach around urban interventions leading to weaknesses in standards regulating the private development sector. In conclusion, this paper recommends: 1. the consideration of health impact in future building regulations; 2. the integration and coordination of key policies covering various scales and phases of the development processes and 3. the better education of residents to understand advances in new energy performance technologies.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Feb 4, 2020 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 5, 2020 |
Publication Date | Jun 1, 2020 |
Deposit Date | Mar 30, 2020 |
Publicly Available Date | Apr 23, 2020 |
Journal | Science of the Total Environment |
Print ISSN | 0048-9697 |
Electronic ISSN | 1879-1026 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 719 |
Article Number | 137146 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137146 |
Keywords | Housing; Health; Hazards; Evidence base; English planning; Building regulations |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5827742 |
Files
Healthy buildings for a healthy city
(2.1 Mb)
PDF
Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You might also like
The availability of brownfield land for housing
(2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
From wasted space to living spaces
(2015)
Journal Article
New report published by CPRE on the availability of brownfield land in England for housing
(2015)
Journal Article
Typologies of knowledge for healthy streets: The need for an interdisciplinary paradigm for public health and design practice
(2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Downloadable Citations
About UWE Bristol Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@uwe.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search