SPHL - Public Health Learning Exchange

Shaping Places for Healthier Lives

The LGA is working in partnership with The Health Foundation on the Shaping Places for Healthier Lives programme to support local government-led partnerships to tackle the wider determinants of health, and to share learning about effective ways of shaping places for healthier lives for all. The strongest determinants of health and health inequalities are the social, economic, commercial and environmental conditions in which people live: the wider determinants of health. These are multiple, diverse, and interrelated factors that shape the health of people in an area.

Creating the conditions for better health in local places requires system-wide partnership action on these wider determinants. This programme is funding five local government-led partnerships to make sustainable changes to local systems, which are consistent with improved population health, and designed to last beyond the lifetime of the programme.

The five local councils that were selected to participate in the programme are: Doncaster Council; London Borough of Newham; Northumberland Council; Shropshire Council; Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Councils.

Each council has developed their project through a three-stage application process, during which they have built partnerships, engaged and involved residents, and built an understanding of the systems of factors that influence their chosen topic. The chosen topics include food security, mental health, and fear of violence and crime in communities.

They will implement an aligned approach across these systems and are encouraged to learn and adapt over the three-year period. This programme does not expect to see a whole system change; this can take many years (decades even). We are looking at how (and whether) councils can be a key partner to lead system change.

Contact

For more information about Shaping Places for Healthier Lives contact: sphl@local.gov.uk