Healthy Urban Places (HUP)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Healthy Urban Places: A systems approach to understanding how to harness the power of local places to improve population health and reduce inequalities
IRAS ID
351506
Contact name
Rosie McEachan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bradford Teaching Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
Healthy Urban Places is a 4-year programme working with communities and local partners – such as Councils and the NHS – in Bradford and Liverpool.
We want to understand how local urban places impact health and how this understanding can be used to help cities become healthier and happier places to live. Improving urban places has the potential to improve the health of local people, reduce inequalities in health experienced between different parts of cities and reduce demand for healthcare services. Our approach focuses on generating this understanding with people in a way which can influence policy and practice to make our urban places healthier for everyone.
By bringing together communities, researchers and decision-makers in our ‘Community Collaboratives’ in Bradford and Liverpool, we are co-producing insights and priorities about what makes a healthy place. Our unrivalled data infrastructure, the Born in Bradford and Children Growing Up in Liverpool birth cohorts, and population-linked datasets of Connected Bradford and Liverpool City Region Civic Data Cooperative, enable us to measure and determine the mechanisms by which places impact health and highlight where spatial disparities manifest. We are co-developing and evaluating place-based interventions using quasi-experimental, quantitative and participatory methods.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/YH/0238
Date of REC Opinion
25 Nov 2025
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion