Healthy place shaping - latest news
Report on the Health Needs Assessment into Healthy Place Shaping in Oxfordshire
A health needs assessment commissioned by OCC’s public health team to set the future direction of this programme has now been completed. The needs assessment identifies gaps in our work across the Oxfordshire system and the priority interventions that will strengthen the building blocks for health. The needs assessment will inform the strategies and policies of our wider system partners, including the new Health & Wellbeing Board strategy.
System Evaluation of Healthy Place Shaping in Oxfordshire Published
A System Evaluation of Healthy Place Shaping (HPS) in Oxfordshire has now been published. The three-year evaluation undertaken by consultants PHAST found that upscaling HPS is a good use of public funds, and HPS as an approach/way of working is not resource intensive. Healthy Place Shaping has had many positive impacts and has been well-received by the community and has been associated with positive behaviour change likely to influence health and wellbeing. Click here to read the executive summary.
New Air Quality Website for Oxfordshire Launched
A new Defra funded air quality website for Oxfordshire is now available, providing local air quality information, forecasts and alerts for when air pollution is poor. The website (www.oxonair.uk) which has been created in partnership between the six Oxfordshire Councils aims to integrate all relevant air quality-related information from all district councils in Oxfordshire under one single platform. The information that the website hosts can help decision makers, clinicians and residents consider the state of our air and what we need to do keep it safe for us to breathe.
Poor air quality is the biggest environmental risk to health and clean air is a key building block to good health. Poor air can lead to a variety of health conditions, such as asthma, COPD and also impact on cardiovascular diseases. Reducing the amount of pollution we create, extending the distance from pollutant sources and protecting the vulnerable are ways organisations and individuals can take steps to clean up our air and improve our health. The website provides information on the local initiatives in Oxfordshire as well as the small changes we can all make.
Topic Paper on Healthy Communities now revised
Oxfordshire’s Topic Paper has been revised to provide background information on the subject of strong and healthy communities to support the development of Local Plans, AONB Management Plans and Neighbourhood Plans. Developers will also find it a useful source of information as it outlines the healthy place shaping principles that should be applied when designing new housing schemes.
New Data available to support Health Impact Assessments
Oxfordshire’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment now includes information, links and downloads for local indicators related to Healthy Place Shaping.
If you are planning to assess the health impact of a proposed development, please use the Oxfordshire HIA toolkit and data contained within the JSNA to understand the health and well-being needs of the local population to identify how a scheme might impact local needs. Such assessments will need to consider how any development will impact and seek to reduce health inequalities. For further information, please access the Oxfordshire Local Area Health Inequalities Dashboard.
Encouraging Active Travel in Market Towns
An award-winning active travel study carried out by the University of Bristol and Oxfordshire County Council has now been published.
The qualitative study was carried out between May and October 2022 to learn more about active travel priorities – travel that involves some physical activity – and what might help people adopt more active habits. The study focused on cycling and walking for commuters and older people aged 65 to 75 living independently in Bicester and Witney.
The study received the “outstanding contribution to public health or social care research” award from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHCR) at the 2022 Thames Valley Health Research Awards last year.
The study looked at groups of people who had been identified as having the best opportunity to take up more active travel. Bicester and Witney were chosen because most key destinations in people’s daily travel are a walkable, or wheelable distance.
As a key element to the study, participants discussed active travel improvements for Bicester and Witney that would encourage them to walk or wheel and cycle more.
In Bicester, these changes include improving walking, wheeling and cycling connectivity from the west of the town to Bicester centre, with an off-road shared-use footway and cycleway, better signage and reduced speed limits.
In Witney, recent works have aimed to improve walking and cycling between west and east Witney, going through the town centre. The works include wider crossings, better signage and reduced speed limits.
Other initiatives include ‘bike library’ cycle loan schemes, free bike repairs and training, and walking and cycling groups. Further improvements in both towns will be pursued as funding becomes available.
The research study, ‘Active Travel in Oxfordshire – a qualitative study of active travel amongst commuters and older adults living in market towns’ was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Teams (PHIRST) scheme.
You can read more about the study on the PHIRST website and in this article published in BMC Public Health.
Evaluation of wayfinding to promote ‘park and stride’ to school in Oxfordshire
In this project, funded by Sport England, we installed wayfinding to encourage active school travel in primary school children in Oxfordshire. Wayfinding involves devising routes that are marked with signage and point-of-decision cues to help parents to follow a safe route for walking or cycling to school. We engaged with students, headteachers, teachers, and parents to understand the school travel environment at each school, the barriers to actively traveling to school, and what factors motivate those who do use active travel.
Wayfinding routes were implemented along footpaths on usual walking and/or cycling routes, and between schools and designated car parks from where parents or carers were encouraged to park and walk the remaining distance to school. These routes included interactive, colourful waymarking signs on footpaths, places of interest such as bug hotels, and banners and finger posts to direct the way. The features of each school route were chosen by school students and the routes were chosen in consultation with parents and school staff. The project was promoted as ‘Park and Stride’ and active school travel increased from 76% pre-intervention to 81% post-intervention across schools where Park and Stride was implemented.
The full evaluation report found that wayfinding increased rates, and enhanced enjoyment of, active school travel but may have greater impact if implemented alongside other interventions which encourage active travel such as school streets that discourage private car use for school commuting.
Understanding the barriers to greenspace access
Access to green space and connection with nature are key determinants of physical and mental wellbeing. Yet some groups face significant barriers to access, many of which are poorly understood. Greenspace & Us is a community insights partnership project that used participatory and creative approaches to understand the barriers and enablers influencing access to greenspace for young women in East Oxford.
Over the course of three months, we gathered a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data to understand these issues, via a survey of secondary school-aged children and a series of six workshops with twenty young women aged 10-16 living in East Oxford. As well as developing shared knowledge as a group, young women were supported to translate this into a Greenspace & Us Manifesto document and accompanying physical artwork.
Some of our main findings include:
- Young women were much less likely than their male counterparts to view greenspaces as active or sporting environments, instead seeing them as places to relax, de-stress and socialise.
- Whilst both real and theoretical mental wellbeing benefits of spending time in greenspace were recognised, lived experience suggests that these are not always available.
- There are large disparities in the distribution of space and provision of equipment and facilities in local parks and other greenspaces to meet different needs – resulting in ‘male dominated’ spaces where young women and girls feel unwelcome and sometimes unsafe.
Learning from these insights and a range of solutions identified by young people themselves, the report makes a number of recommendations to address young women’s capability, opportunity and motivation to spend time in greenspaces.
Further information and the detailed report of the findings of this project is available at the Natural England website.
Wayfinding pilot schemes enable people to become more physically active
Two demonstrator projects funded by Sport England have piloted interactive wayfinding to promote physical activity. The projects were targeted at families with children under the age of 12 years with the objective of increasing frequency and intensity of physical activity to improve health and reduce likelihood of obesity. The Park & Stride project aimed to increase active travel to school and the Kidlington Zoo trails encouraged walking in the community. The pilots showed that these relatively low-cost investments in the public-realm infrastructure increased active travel with a positive social return on investment: for every £1 invested there was £18 worth of health benefit.
Waiting Well pilot supports people whilst waiting for surgery
This population health management pilot tested the use of group consultations as a mechanism for addressing health and wellbeing concerns experienced by patients whilst waiting for surgery. Group consultations proved an effective intervention in improving confidence in self-care and in enabling patients to take lifestyle measures to improve their health and well-being.