Placing health: Neighbourhood renewal, health improvement and complexity

Description

Where people live matters to their health. Health improvement strategies often target where people live, but do they work? Placing health tackles this question through an examination of England's Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy and its health targets. It evaluates the evidence base for the strategy, compares experiences from the United States and elsewhere in Europe, and illustrates the relevance of complexity theory to area-based health improvement work. The Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy aims to close the gap between areas with the worst health and the population as a whole, including commitments to better services and community engagement. This book argues, however, that the strategy currently lacks a clear theoretical framework, with important practical implications for the prospects of success. Complexity theory offers a framework that can help with seeing the bigger picture beyond neighbourhoods, but still with a role for neighbourhood action. The book brings together these topical issues with a social science analysis of current programmes based on the methods and concepts of complexity thinking. It concludes by setting out how local action based on these ideas offers a new approach to area-based health improvement work. Placing health is aimed at researchers, academics and students in the social and health sciences with an interest in area-based health improvement work, as well as practitioners in health services, local government and voluntary agencies working on neighbourhood renewal and health projects.

Tim Blackman is Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University and Professor of Sociology and Social Policy.

"In this innovative and stimulating book, Tim Blackman draws on extensive practical research experience to illuminate both the complexity of neighbourhood effects on health, and the practical relevance of complexity theory to public policy. Drawing on examples from unexpected quarters, this book will provoke fresh thinking about the objective of creating healthy neighbourhoods for all." John Mohan, Professor of Social Policy, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, UK