Urban Planning for Health Equity

Daniel Münderlein, Patricia Tollmann, and Heike Köckler

Resilience, health equity, and salutogenesis are distinct yet interconnected approaches to promoting and sustaining well-being. 

• Resilience is the ability to quickly recover from difficulties and emphasizes individual and collective adaptation in the face of adversity.
• Health equity focuses on eliminating systemic barriers that prevent certain populations from achieving optimal health. It calls for fair and just access to resources and opportunities, regardless of social determinants.
• Finally, salutogenesis offers a complementary approach by shifting the focus from disease to the origins of health. Salutogenesis explores the resources and strategies that enable individuals and communities to manage stressors and develop a sense of coherence, thereby enhancing well-being.

Understanding and integrating these three concepts is crucial for developing comprehensive, effective strategies to build thriving, healthy societies.

• Full PDF Resilience

Patricia Tollmann, Heike Köckler, Natalie Riedel, Martin Knöll, Katarzyna Brukalo 

There is a growing consensus on the need to plan and design cities that respond to the increasingly heterogeneous lifestyles and capabilities of today's societies (Baumgart/Rüdiger 2022). The concept of diversity is widely discussed in this context. One of the most influential works on health equity emphasizes the importance of diversity in addressing health inequalities through a multifaceted, inclusive approach that considers the various factors that influence health in different segments of society (Marmot/Atkinson/Bell et al. 2010). This glossary entry aims to improve understanding of the fundamental concepts of diversity and discrimination and how they can be addressed in urban design and planning to promote health equity.

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Thomas Verbeek, Heike Köckler, Rehana Shrestha, and Gabriele Bolte 

Concepts of environmental justice can provide a framework for health equity by addressing different notions of justice and linking health-related environmental factors with socio-spatial structures (Walker 2012). Environmental justice is a broad concept that can be applied at different spatial scales; various situations of environmental injustice can also be found locally. At this level, different planning instruments can advance environmental justice goals. Through planning procedures and participation, urban planning contributes to procedural environmental justice and the empowerment of people – central concepts of environmental justice. Furthermore, urban planning influences land use, environmental quality, and the social distribution of the urban population (Köckler, 2017), thereby contributing to distributional environmental justice. Due to the direct and indirect relationships between environmental quality and health and well-being, environmental justice arguments can support urban planning strategies that promote health equity.

• Full PDF Environmental Justice

Nadja Kabisch and Daniel Münderlein

 “Climate change is the greatest challenge of the 21st century, threatening human health and development. The longer we delay action, the greater the risks to human lives and health.” (WHO 2018:1). Climate change is defined as “a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use” (IPCC 2021: 2222). Climate change is impacting health worldwide (WHO 2018), with justice implications also framed as climate justice. Climate justice often highlights the fact that the impacts and effects of climate change disproportionately burden the poorest and most disadvantaged, although the developed nations are the biggest producers of the emissions that induce climate change (London/Joshi/Cairncross et al. 2019).

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Daniel Münderlein 

The biological resources of our planet are influenced by natural evolutionary processes and increasingly altered by human activities. When this endangers these resources or the ecosystems to which they belong, it poses significant risks to the global population, which relies on them for livelihoods, health, and overall well-being. The complex global health challenges we face today – such as poverty, malnutrition, and infectious diseases – are more closely linked than ever to the intricate relationships between ecosystems, people, and socioeconomic factors. Understanding and protecting these relationships, as well as promoting biodiversity, can be considered part of active healthcare on a global scale. Urban planning can significantly help reconnect human health and biodiversity. “Biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services that they deliver are central pillars for all life on the planet, including human life. They are sources of food and essential nutrients, medicines and medicinal compounds, fuel, energy, livelihoods and cultural and spiritual enrichment. They also contribute to the provision of clean water and air, and perform critical functions that range from the regulation of pests and disease to that of climate change and natural disasters. Each of these functions has direct and indirect consequences for our health and well-being, and each [is] an important component of the epidemiological puzzle that confront[s] our efforts to stem the tide of infectious and noncommunicable diseases” (WHO 2015: 9).

• Full PDF Biodiversity 

Martin Knöll, Marcus Grant, Magdalena Maierhofer, and Martin Sondermann 

There is an increasing focus on how infrastructure impacts health. The bulk of the pertinent literature defines infrastructure as a facilitator of societal outcomes (Harris/De Leeuw 2023). Infrastructure encompasses facilities and systems for individual and collective use that influence economic development, social coexistence, and sustainable development.

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Katarzyna Brukalo and Marcus Grant 

The purpose of developing a comprehensive definition of food and nutrition infra structure is to create a framework that considers health and health equity in the plan ning, design, and governance of urban environments. Understanding and structuring the food system enables policymakers, urban planners, and community leaders to better address the nutritional needs of all residents and ensure equitable access to healthy, safe, and nutritious food.

• Full PDF Food system and nutrition