title: Joining up health and planning: how Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) can inform health and wellbeing strategies and spatial planning.
abstract: There has been a welcome joining up of the rhetoric around health, the environment and land use or spatial planning in both the English public health white paper and the National Planning Policy Framework. However, this paper highlights a real concern that this is not being followed through into practical guidance needed by local authorities (LAs), health bodies and developers about how to deliver this at the local level. The role of Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and Health and Wellbeing Strategies (HWSs) have the potential to provide a strong basis for integrated local policies for health improvement, to address the wider determinants of health and to reduce inequities. However, the draft JSNA guidance from the Department of Health falls short of providing a robust, comprehensive and practical guide to meeting these very significant challenges. The paper identifies some examples of good practice. It recommends that action should be taken to raise the standards of all JSNAs to meet the new challenges and that HWSs should be aligned spatially and temporally with local plans and other LA strategies. HWSs should also identify spatially targeted interventions that can be delivered through spatial planning or transport planning. Steps need to be taken to ensure that district councils are brought into the process.
authors.affiliation: Environment, Sustainability and Health Consultant, URS Infrastructure & Environment, Birmingham, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tomlinson
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hewitt
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Blackshaw
mesh_terms: D018672:Community Health Planning; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004739:England; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D013037:Spatial Behavior
keywords: Health and Wellbeing Board; Health and Wellbeing Strategy; JSNA; Joint Strategic Needs Assessment; land use planning; wider determinants of health