Placing Health: Neighbourhood renewal, health improvement and complexity

Abstract

Where people live matters to their health. Health improvement strategies often target where people live, but do they work? Placing Health tackles this question by exploring new theoretical, empirical and practice perspectives on this issue, anchored by major studies of England's Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy and the Programme for Action on health inequalities. Placing Health is the first major publication to use complexity theory to understand the inter-relationships between neighbourhood change, the emergence of states of health, and policy interventions managed using performance indicators. This is complemented by reviews of the international evidence base on area effects and neighbourhood change, supplemented by new insights from the author's own research and experience as an advisor to local neighbourhood renewal strategies. Placing Health is a wide-ranging study with many new examples of the impact of neighbourhood conditions from smoking to dementia. It is aimed at researchers, teachers and students in the social, health and policy sciences with an interest in area-based health improvement. It is also written for practitioners in health services, local government and voluntary agencies seeking a conceptually-based and evidence-informed underpinning to neighbourhood renewal and health improvement work.