Most people in the world die from diseases you can’t catch from other people.  These are called non-communicable diseases, and include heart and respiratory conditions, cancers, diabetes, and mental health problems. We know where we live has a big effect on our physical and mental health.  We want to bring people together, to make healthy places a key focus of urban development.

We’re aiming to make it easier to count the costs of poor health, linked with our urban environment. This will include costs of health treatments, missing work, pain and suffering, as well as identifying who pays. 

We’re working with people, who live in urban areas, to enable them to share how where they live affects their health. Together, we’re creating better ways to communicate their experiences, with the people who make decisions about urban developments.

We’re engaging with a wide range of professionals to map out and understand current decision-making systems for urban development. We’ll use this information to identify opportunities for systemic changes, to prioritise preventing disease. 

This information will be used to collaboratively create tools and processes, to fundamentally change how we plan and develop urban environments.  We’ll work with our partners in Bristol and Greater Manchester, to test and refine these changes using case studies, before transferring what we learn to other cities across the UK and beyond. 

Working together, we believe we can leave a legacy of a healthier planet.  Visit our website, truud.ac.uk to find out more about our research and how you can become a part of it.