Healthy City Assessments: Reviewing assessment tools for healthy cities

The built environment influences health. The Healthy Cities Movement focuses on creating healthier and more sustainable cities, which also includes healthy urban design. In an age of climate change, urban density and inequality, planners, developers, and communities have a special responsibility to design healthy places for people. There are multiple assessment tools for healthy and sustainable cities and buildings design. However, it is unclear which health perspectives are incorporated or overlooked in these tools. This paper (1) maps existing assessment tools relating to urban design and health, (2) examines which health-related outcomes are incorporated, in order to (3) propose criteria for an assessment tool for healthy cities. This study includes a review of recent assessment tools, a questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with three healthy urban design experts, and resulted in the conceptualization of healthy design criteria. The identified criteria additionally show issues for action in urban development regarding sustainable, healthy cities. The outcome can be considered an approach to develop tools for healthier cities. Assessment tools that include holistic perspectives on health may be able to reflect upon urban health and contribute to healthy communities.