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Healthy Urban Places

There are key aspects of where and how you live that affect people’s health. Even within a single city life expectancy can vary dramatically.

Healthy Urban Places will examine how population health is affected by features of the urban environment such as:

  • walkability

  • air quality

  • housing

  • public transport

  • access to schools

  • parks

  • social and community assets

  • healthy food

  • health services

Its aim is to influence decisions that can make cities healthier and happier places to live.

The Healthy Urban Places consortium is a partnership between:

  • Bradford Institute for Health Research based at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • University College London

  • University of Liverpool

  • University of York

  • University of Leeds

  • University of Bradford

  • Imperial College London

  • Bradford Council Health Determinants Research Collaboration

  • Barcelona Institute for Global Health

  • University of the Basque Country

It will involve local communities and decision-makers working with partners in Bradford and Liverpool and will harness existing major research initiatives including the Born in Bradford and Children Growing Up in Liverpool cohorts.

Key people

Director: Professor Rosie McEachan, Bradford Institute for Health Research

A portrait of Professor Rosie McEachan.

Rosie McEachan is the Director of Born in Bradford and a proud (Scottish) Bradfordian. She is an experienced applied health researcher with particular interests in cohort studies, development and evaluation of complex interventions, environmental determinants of health, green space, air quality, and co-production.

Rosie holds a visiting professor position at University College London and an honorary chair position at the University of Bradford.

Deputy Director: Professor Laura Vaughan, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London

A portrait of Professor Laura Vaughan.

Laura Vaughan is Professor of Urban Form and Society and the Director of the Space Syntax Lab, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She has extensive experience of research into the relationship between urban form and society using space syntax methods to consider some of the most critical aspects of cities and society, ranging from spatial inequalities and health, poverty and housing, to economic and social vitality.

In addition to extensive research and teaching activities, Professor Vaughan is regularly invited to disseminate knowledge to policy-makers.

Deputy Director: Professor John Wright, Bradford Institute for Health Research

A portrait of Professor John Wright.

John Wright is a doctor and epidemiologist with a background in hospital medicine and public health in the UK and in Africa. He established and leads the Bradford Institute for Health Research and Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research. He is the Director of Research for the City of Bradford and Director of the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration. He is Visiting Professor in Clinical Epidemiology at the Universities of York, Leeds and Bradford and has authored over 500 papers, three textbooks and been awarded over £150 million in research award funding. In 2007 he set up the Born in Bradford (BiB) cohort study and in 2016 set up Born in Bradford’s Better Start. In 2019 he established ActEarly.

Meet the team

Read more...