Walking, cycling and public transport are important ways to both support health and wellbeing and tackle inequalities. Our work in this field focuses on collating evidence and sharing learning from leading active travel cities.
Belfast Healthy Cities is a partner in the Active Belfast partnership and is supporting Active Belfast in particular with evidence, learning and good practice examples from the WHO European Healthy Cities Network. Belfast Healthy Cities contributed to the development of the Active Belfast Active Travel Action Plan.
An initial contribution to the delivery of the action plan was a workshop on the WHO Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) on walking and cycling. This workshop was delivered in Belfast and Antrim by WHO adviser Nick Cavill.
Walkability Assessment
Our work on age friendly environments has focused on the importance of walkable environments for older people. This included the development of a Walkability Assessment for Healthy Ageing tool, designed to support older people identify key issues in their own area. A report on a series of pilots made recommendations for improving walkability for older people.
Work is ongoing to explore validating the tool to be used with all age groups.