From Park to Club: Youth, Place & Alcohol

The Built Environment People, Places and Health Sheffield, 19th September 2016 Tim G Townshend

Aim of today’s presentation

• Overview the impact of the built environment in supporting or inhibiting healthy lifestyle choices

• Specifically to briefly think about built environment and… • Mental wellbeing and restoration

• Physical Activity & Socialisation

• Food access

• Clusters of unhealthy shops and services

• Policy opportunities

• Conclusions

Barton et al.

Health, wellbeing and place

Contemporary Urban Life

• Life to day can be stressful and unhealthy!

• Overcrowding, noise, pollution, sedentary lifestyles, etc.

Mental restoration and wellbeing

• We know ‘greener’ environments promote feelings of wellbeing –

• 4 dimensions to this – stress reduction/physical activity/socialisation/env. quality

• Mental wellbeing/stress reduction/restoration • Ulrich - psychoneuroendocrine

processes (1983) • Kaplans’- Attention Restoration

Theory (1995) • Etc.

The Meadows, Edinburgh

Therapeutic landscapes - e.g. garden allotments

• Therapeutic landscape come in many forms

• Large body of evidence on the benefits of allotment gardening • stress reduction • communing with nature • Socialisation • exercise, improved diet etc

• They are still disappearing and few new ones created

(Townshend, 2016)

Pushing boundaries of therapeutic design

Hogeweyk, Amsterdam – dementia friendly design • Emphasis on activity and encounter

Rethinking - Blue-green Infrastructure (BGI)

• Evidence water settings may offer perceived psychological benefits of green ones (White et al, 2010; Volker and Kistemann,

2010)

• Urban blue as good as rural green?

• Potential for riversides/canals etc – e.g. walking for health (WfH) schemes

Quayside, Newcastle

More generally BGI and Physical Activity (PA) • Studies (early 2000s e.g. Giles-Corti

etal 2005 etc) associated greenspace proximity with increased recreational activity • More recently

contradictory results? • Example of where research

has used multiple metrics, which has been unhelpful

• Though clearly they do provide the opportunity to be physically active

Parkrun

Grand Union Canal, Dublin

Walkable Neighbourhoods

• More generally - premise for ‘walkable neighbourhoods’ remains strong – (Townshend, 2014)

• Which aspects might be more influential open to debate • Access to shops and services • High residential density • Pavements and public transport Help meet minimum guidelines • ‘Activity supportive’ – highest levels of

activity • Adams et al, 2013

• Socialisation increased in walkable neighbourhoods

Looking at PA and food access

• Studies are limited –

• But e.g. suggest a link between poor access to PA facilities & poor diet

• E.g. Newcastle research (Gallo et al, 2015)

• Urban parks and social equity for younger people

• Study of two urban parks and their peripheries in disparate neighbourhoods

• Provision in the park poorer in poorer neighbourhood

• PLUS – surrounding food environment much less healthy

• (i.e. supporting a deprivation amplification hypothesis)

Neighbourhoods and Fast Food

• Food environment influences individual food choice (Charreire et al., 2010; Caspi et al., 2012)

• There is evidence that fast food availability and consumption are linked (Caspi et al., 2012).

• Recent studies have found links between fast food outlet density and weight in older children/adolescents (Cetateanu & Jones, 2014)

Unhealthy Clusters, or ‘Toxic High Streets’

Many traditional shopping streets – particularly in poorer areas have become a toxic mix of Fast food plus… Betting shops Money lenders (NB this list could be extended to consider – cheap alcohol suppliers, tanning salons etc)

• Access and Availability are generally related to consumption and thereby to health issues – though the mechanisms are complex

(Townshend, 2016)

L.B. Harringay

Implications are under-researched

…Before we leave food environments

• There are opportunities within the built environment to reconnect people with food in a positive way…

Incredible Edible Todmorden

Emergent issues in research

• Multiple Environments – • Both PA and food env. research –

• Combined exposure is important – but more influential with some groups than others

(e.g. Burgoine, et al 2016)

• Importance of journeys – particularly active travel to school (e.g. Cooper, 2012)

Work

Home Play

Can we learn from other cultures?

Looking at the intensive use of public space by older persons in China

Policy Implications for built env.

• Positively National Planning Policy Framework does mention health!

• There are existing mechanisms to integrate health concerns into urban planning – particularly impact assessment – Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) – Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

• Though not statutory Health Impact Assessments (HIA)

• Planning policies to address particular issues – e.g. fast food proliferation – (mixed success – but improving picture?)

Conclusions

• WE do know what creates a supportive healthy built environment - Creating green, ‘walkable’ environments (while restricting unhealthy clusters) would seem to be common sense

• Yet on the ground trends would appear to be accelerating in the opposite direction

• Evidence base linking built environment is far from perfect – but there is arguably enough

• It won’t be easy to change deeply entrenched positions – there is huge inertia in the system – but there is also huge opportunity for health and built environment professionals to work together to try and create healthier places

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Burgoine T, Forouhi NG, Griffin SJ, Brage S, Wareham NJ and Monsivais P. Does neighborhood fast-food outlet exposure amplify inequalities in diet and obesity? A cross-sectional study. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2016.

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Cooper AR, Jago R, Southward EF and Page AS. Active travel adn physical activity across the school transition: The PEACH project. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2012; 44: 1890-7.

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Townshend T.G. (2014) Walkable Neighbourhoods: principles, measures and health impacts, in Burton E., & Cooper, R Well-being and the Environment, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.

Gallo, R., Townshend, T.G. & Lake A.A. (2014) Exploring urban parks and their peripheral food environments using a case study approach, Urban Design International doi.udi.2013.35.

Giles-Corti B, Broomhall MH, Knuiman M, et al. Increasing walking: How important is distance to, attractiveness and size of public open space? American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2005; 28: 169-76.

Townshend, T.G. (2016) My Haven, My Sanctuary in Babalis D ed.) Approaching the Integrative City, Altralinea, Firenze.

Townshend, T.G. (2016) Toxic High Streets, Journal of Urban Design: DOI:10.1080/13574809.2015.1106916

Ulrich, R.S. (1983) 'Aesthetic and affective response to natural environment', in Altman, I. and Wohwill, J.F. (eds.) Behavior and the Natural Environment New York: Plenum Press, pp. 85-125

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White, M.P., et al., (2013) Coastal proximity and health: a fixed effects analysis of longitudinal panel data, Health and Place 23, 97-103

Thank you! Tim.Townshend@ncl.ac.uk