Menu
City Know-hows
To create healthy urban places and spaces, public acceptance is key to success.
Share
Target audience
City and municipal planners, public health officials, elected officials at municipal level, health promotion practitioners, citizens
The problem
Poor eating habits and physical inactivity are linked to rising rates of obesity and related chronic conditions. The built environment plays a significant role in shaping these behaviours. To be effective, interventions and policies that transform the built environment to encourage healthy choices must be accepted by the public. However, the lack of context-specific Canadian data on acceptability highlights the need for further research to guide practice and address public health challenges.
What we did and why
We examined the level of agreement among adults in two major cities in Saskatchewan, Canada, to implement built environment interventions and policies promoting healthy eating and physical activity. We explored the individual and neighbourhood-level factors that influenced their agreement. We also looked at the effect of the degree of intrusiveness of the interventions, and policies on agreement. The study’s findings will have practical implications for designing more acceptable interventions to promote healthier behaviours in the population.
Our study’s contribution
We found that:
Recently implemented and proposed built environment changes in the cities may have impacted the study’s findings.
Impacts for city policy and practice
We found that:
Although more research is necessary to understand motivational differences between demographic groups, we can suggest cities need to consider the following;
Further information
Full research article:
Acceptability of built environment interventions to improve healthy eating and physical activity among city dwellers in Saskatchewan, Canada: THEPA findings from a local context by Sahana Ramamoorthy, Lise Gauvin, and Nazeem Muhajarine.
Related posts
Differences in walking behaviour among racial groups highlight systemic inequalities that affect how and why people walk, pointing to broader issues of transportation and urban planning inequities.
Access to green spaces and a walkable neighborhood are essential for maintaining good health, particularly for vulnerable populations. Thus, it is imperative to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to reside in neighborhoods that are not only walkable, but also equipped with adequate green spaces conveniently located within a reasonable walking distance.
This comparative study of 10 cities across the globe aims to understand the major factors that drive the sprawl conditions and their impact on the outer edges of the cities. Land is a very potential natural resource that has been exploited over the past few decades. Migration of people in search of better living conditions has led to the formation of cities, which are deemed to provide better quality of life. However, the rate of influx has become very high, leading to saturation in cities and forcing people to move towards the outskirts.
