Public Health Plans | Local Government | Environmental Determinants of Health
Environmental determinants of health
There are many factors, or determinants, that influence health, most of which are non-medical. These determinants can operate as either risk factors or protective factors, and often interact with one another over time.
Environmental determinants of health refer to the physical, chemical, biological, and place-based features external to a person within the built, natural, and social environments that positively or negatively influence health behaviours, exposures, wellbeing, and overall population health outcomes. Environmental determinants have a considerable impact on health – The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates about 22% of the global burden of disease, and 23% of all deaths are attributable to modifiable environmental factors.
Importantly, health is strongly shaped by the circumstances and quality of the places in which people are born, grow, live, work, play, and age. These conditions influence the opportunities places provide for healthy choices and behaviours, exposures, and ultimately the health and disease risk of individuals and communities. Examples include air quality, temperature, access to parks and nature, walkability, shade, transport options, housing, food environments, safety, and broader environmental quality.
Creating healthier environments is thus a key pathway to improving population health.
The benefits of measuring environmental determinants of health
Measuring changes in health behaviours and outcomes such as physical activity, obesity, or chronic disease is inherently complex, often relies oneself-report measures, is influenced by many factors, and often only observable over long timeframes. In contrast, environmental conditions and changes to the built and natural environment can be measured more directly, updated more frequently, and influenced more readily through local government action.
Measures of enviornmetal determinants therefore provide a practical proxy for tracking progress toward health behaviours and outcomes by measuring and monitoring the environments that directly shape them.
Project overview
With the support from a Healthy Communites grant from Healthway, the project will pilot the use of the Thriving Perth Portal and the development of a Healthy Environments Audit Tool to undertake health-focused environmental and urban design audits, as identified in the state public health plan to inform development, delivery, andevaluation of evidence-based Public Health Plans
The Healthy Environments Audit Tool will enable local governments to map, measure, and track environmental conditions, and assess how local environments support or hinder healthy behaviours, to inform the development, implementation and evaluation of Public Health Plans.
Working with health promotion teams from the North, East and South Metropolitan Health Services and in partnership with local governments, we are developing a suite of evidence-based measures and indicators aligned with public health plan objectives and areas within local government influence to help shape local environmental conditions. It will:
- Provide benchmark measures for goal setting and tracking and reporting progress
- Support prioritisation of actions and interventions at local levels and facilitate on-ground action
- Assist with integrated delivery across local government functions, departments and strategic priorities
- Assist local governments to integrate public health priorities with existing Council strategies, priorities and investment.
We are working directly with councils to apply a wide range of datasets, enhance and refine existing information, and develop new environmental indicators and decision-support tools where needed to ensure outputs are practical, relevant and fit for purpose. This collaborative process also helps identify critical data gaps and drives the creation of new datasets and measures that more effectively support evidence-based local public health planning.
Further results and updates will be shared here as this work progresses.