Healthy communities and prevention

Is now the time for health & wellbeing in the Transition Movement (part 2/4)

Another approach to health that is very well aligned with Transition is Healthy Cities. In fact the Healthy Cities Network UK recently had a joint meeting with Transition Network to discuss shared agenda (Oct 2013 see event details).The settings approach to health encourages any community to actively seek to optimise the benefits to health at every opportunity. For a town or suburb, this may include tackling aspects which are detrimental to health, including fast food outlets and betting shops. 

Another good example is walkability of the neighbourhood. If parents can walk with their children to school, this is an indicator that the whole community can benefit. If streets are designed for walking it may lead to fewer cars and hence less pollution. Of course pollution is harmful to health; as highlighted in the smogs in England earlier this year as well as impacting on the climate. Walkable streets are often green streets, with trees and grass verges. The greenery can reduce noise pollution and absorb air pollution (so best not to grow food on the verges!) Again calmer, greener streets can better for people with disabilities, who may need to use a car, or for people with learning disabilities or dementia. Lastly traffic-calmed streets and green streets have been shown to increase sociability of neighbourhoods, and English ‘Homezones’ have partially helped here.

I’m particularly keen on enabling healthy lifestyles because this can prevent ill-health. Prevention has got to be better than cure, especially considering the carbon footprint of cure (healthcare)– from pharmaceuticals to hospitals. A great example linking prevention with climate change and our corporate-driven culture is obesity. Commodification and global trade of food have played a big role in causing both climate change and the increasing rates of obesity, I would suggest. The corporate, profit-driven, pressure to aggressively market high calorie food cannot be matched simply by public health campaigns and diet fads. This is a good example of the corporate determinants of health. Our corporate influenced food environment and car-dependency will increase the likelihood of obesity, which will in turn cause further health problems down the line, including diabetes, heart disease and stroke. The carbon footprint of treating these diseases should clearly be avoided, let alone the suffering and disability. 

Potentially community based initiatives are the best place to start to counter the negative impacts of food marketing and car-dependency, because they may change social norms rather than focusing on individual behaviour. If Healthy Cities or Transition Towns can start to address these issues and improve health, disease can be prevented, along with a huge carbon footprint of hospitals and drugs.