The value of incorporating inhabitants’ perspectives on health into municipal spatial planning processes: an explorative study

Governments are increasingly recognising the importance of paying attention to the effect of the environment on the health of city inhabitants. In order to achieve a healthy living environment, it’s necessary to specify what a healthy living environment is and to integrate health considerations into decision-making processes. Unfortunately, this still happens too little. This explorative study investigated, with focus groups, whether the views of inhabitants on healthy living environments can play a role in increasing attention to health in spatial planning and decision-making processes. We investigated what inhabitants thought of their environment in relation to their health and which elements were important in creating a healthy living environment. Results showed that inhabitants desire a healthy living environment. In addition to elements in the natural, built, and community environment, inhabitants named three essential conditions that should be taken into account, namely surveillance and law-enforcement, the performance of daily tasks by public institutions, and the involvement of inhabitants in developments in their living environment. These conditions and the perceptions of inhabitants can be valuable information for municipalities. Increased involvement of inhabitants in spatial planning processes would make it possible to incorporate more attention to health in these processes than is currently the case.