Who is this for?

Health Professionals

For health professionals, including health advocates, public health officers and population health managers, Healthy Spaces and Places provides unique opportunities to:

• provide evidence to planners, designers and their related groups of how the built environment affects people’s lifelong health and wellbeing
• better understand what planners, designers and related groups consider when planning, designing and building places, and think about how health professionals can support their decision making
• link to organisations involved in health and planning.

Health professionals as well as planners, designers and related groups are integral to Healthy Spaces and Places achieving its goals, as the resources on this website show.

The following resources will help health professionals:

• Case Studies - practical Australian examples on how to implement healthy planning principles
• Healthy Spaces and Places: An Overview – summary of the national guide to designing places for healthy living
• Design Principles - key principles to consider when designing environments to support active living
• Development Types - how healthy design principles can be applied to a range of development types, such as schools, neighbourhood parks and shopping precincts
• Why Health & Planning? - the evidence on how good planning can improve health and wellbeing
• Australian Planning Systems: Health Interventions  – outlines the the stages in Australian planning systems where health and wellbeing can be addressed.

At the local level, Healthy Spaces and Places has the potential to be a catalyst for partnerships between health professionals and planners, designers and related groups that lead to better outcomes for communities. As well, over time health professionals can help build the evidence base for planning and design to support lifelong health and wellbeing and to assist in reducing Australia’s epidemic levels of obesity and overweight. 

Using the glossary

The glossary on this website is an important tool. For health professionals it is the place to go if you come across planning, design or building language with which you are not familiar.

Last updated on 6th August, 2009