City planning indicators

Good city planning produces co-benefits for individual and planetary health and wellbeing.

Urban design, transport and health

In 2016, a series on urban design, transport and health was published in The Lancet, drawing attention to the importance of integrated upstream city planning policies, as a pathway to creating healthy and sustainable cities.

City planning policies determine the local built environment and transport features that influence transportation choices and affect exposures to health risk and protective factors. The Lancet series proposes a set of city planning indicators that can be used to benchmark and monitor cities.

Global health series on urban design, transport and health

In May 2022, The Lancet global health series followed up on the 2016 series. In the new series, authors demonstrate how the city planning indicators can be used to measure urban design, transport policies, and features in cities.

The authors present the results of a 3.5 year case study in 25 cities in 19 lower, middle and high income countries, where they conducted policy analysis and assessed built environment and transport features, using geospatial indicators. They also identified thresholds for built environment interventions, that could help achieve the World Health Organization’s target for increasing physical activity by 15% by 2030.

Watch Dr. Billie Giles-Corti giving an overview of the series.

Further resources

If you would like to explore some of the concepts we have covered in more detail, the following resources are optional.

Lancet series on urban design, transport, and health

Lancet global health series on urban design, transport, and health

The Lancet global health 2022 series on urban design, transport and health

You can join this course developed by RMIT academics that addresses the ways to transform cities into mobility driven liveable communities.