Centre of Expertise Urban Vitality
Health contexts
People’s living environments have an impact on their behaviour, lifestyle and health. Good social cohesion and a green living environment have a beneficial impact on people’s health, while factors such as noise pollution and litter have a detrimental impact on people’s enjoyment of their living environment and their health. How can you help people to lead a healthy life in their own neighbourhood? The Health Contexts Professorship – a joint initiative by Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment – is exploring this question.
The Health Contexts Professorship focuses on urban living environments, which are characterised by health disparities between highly-educated and less-educated groups and by ‘superdiversity’. The professorship focuses on the major health challenges in cities, such as obesity and social isolation, but also the challenges that citizens themselves identify.
Resident participation – including in their role as ‘co-researchers’ – forms a core part of the studies conducted by the professorship. The professorship works with engaged citizens to develop innovative ways of facilitating the creation of healthy neighbourhoods.