Purpose: Designing pedestrian- and cycling-friendly cities that promote active lifestyles will produce co-benefits for health equity and the environment and is consistent with the World Health Organisation’s Global Action Plan for Physical Activity and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  We investigated whether policy-frameworks and transport and planning interventions are in place to achieve these aspirations and whether inequities exist in access to infrastructure in cities worldwide.

Methods: The Lancet 2016 series on Urban Design, Transport and Health proposed city planning indicators to monitor implementation of urban and transport interventions that would enhance health and reduce non-communicable diseases. To assess and apply these indicators in cities across the globe, collaborators were recruited at international conferences and through the International Physical Activity and the Environment Network (IPEN). Working with local policymakers, collaborators were guided to undertake a policy review and identify local geospatial data that could be used to populate the indicator framework.  These data were managed and analysed centrally, with local teams validating and interpreting results, and disseminating findings to academic and local audiences.   

Results: The study includes 25 cities varying in size and from high-, low- and middle-income countries. All 25 cities have provided policy data and 14 geospatial (GIS-based) indicators.  Data are currently being analysed.  Our results will focus on whether these cities have urban and transportation legislation, policies and investments and spatially-derived policy outcomes that will foster active living and reduce health inequities.     

Conclusions: Building on decades of research showing associations between the built environment and active living, this study provides policy-relevant evidence and recommendations for strengthening city planning policies and interventions to create healthy, active and liveable cities. 

Purpose: Urban systems policies in domains such as transport, land use and urban design, housing, public open space, employment and social infrastructure help to shape urban and transport planning and design interventions. These, in turn, determine transport mode choices and lifestyles, and ultimately exposure to health risks, such as physical inactivity. This research assessed the extent to which policy and governance practices support the creation of healthy, active neighbourhoods in cities worldwide. 

Methods: A recent Lancet paper (Giles-Corti et al 2016) proposed a set of indicators which could be used to measure progress towards creating healthy, active cities. This study created the policy indicators outlined in that paper, for 25 cities worldwide. Collaborators were recruited through the International Physical Activity and the Environment Network (IPEN) and presentations at international conferences. Policy data were collected via an online survey in participating cities, by local researchers and urban policymakers. Content analysis was used to assess the presence/absence of policies for key urban systems (e.g. open space, public transport), and their strengths and limitations, including whether the policies aligned with evidence on healthy cities, and whether they were specific and measurable.  

Results: The 25 cities were of varying sizes and were spread across high-, low- and middle-income countries. There were significant challenges in coordinating the collection of comparable policy data across cities, with diverse policy contexts and different languages. Policy standards varied significantly across cities, with some cities much further advanced in creating evidence-based policy for healthy, active cities. While most cities had policy aspirations to create healthy neighbourhoods, these were often not supported by specific policy actions or measurable policy targets. Policy gaps were more common in lower resource settings. 

Conclusions: This study demonstrates a method of measuring evidence-based urban policy indicators focused on healthy built environments, in diverse cities worldwide. Specific policy recommendations developed from this research could support policymakers in their efforts to create healthy, active cities. 

Purpose: Cities in diverse contexts across the globe share aspirations of urban liveability.  Monitoring and comparisons of global cities' progress towards urban design and transport policies that support healthy and sustainable lifestyles often focus on headline indicators.  However, city-scale summaries ignore within-city variation in living conditions. Hence, they provide limited information to guide targeted interventions.   Methods for using open source software and open data to calculate and map policy relevant geospatial indicators for healthy liveable cities were developed to compare cities and evaluate the degree to which policies to support active living: 1) are being implemented and for whom;  and 2) whether they can measured using open data.

Methods: Collaborators from the International Physical Environment Network (IPEN) and others nominated cities for calculation and analysis of policy-relevant geospatial indicators related to urban design and transport.  Official data on cities were solicited from collaborators via an online portal.  Sources of globally consistent data were identified including: study region boundaries, population and urban grids, street networks and destinations, and public transport schedules.  Routable pedestrian-appropriate transport networks and assets were derived using OSMnx.  An audit of destinations identified within each city’s buffered study region was undertaken, which was reviewed and validated by collaborators.  Spatial indicators were calculated, analysed and visualised using open data sources, and validated using official sources where available. These included street connectivity, population density, public transport (any, and frequent) access, 'daily living'-amenities access, walkability, and public open space access.

Results:  Within- and between-city comparisons of achievement of shared goals for liveable neighbourhoods for 25 diverse cities across six global regions will be presented.  The potential impact of regional geospatial context on indicator performance, associations with physical activity and other health outcomes, and the degree to which these can be validly measured using open data will also be considered.

Conclusions: Sustainable healthy urban development is a universal aspiration.  However, further progress on evidence-based indicators is required for this to be achieved and to ensure there is equitable access to health-promoting land use and transport interventions within cities.