Health and wellbeing can be a powerful catalyst and lens through which to understand people and places and evaluate outcomes. This discussion paper explores the possibility of taking a health-led approach to infrastructure.
Infrastructure is fundamental to the resilience, health and wellbeing of communities, yet asset planning, investment and management across health & infrastructure systems is rarely well-aligned. A series of economic, environmental, social and political challenges is driving a new convergence between health, wellbeing and infrastructure, based around cross-sector collaboration and holistic, place-based responses.
Drawing on health sector innovation in asset-based community development and the shift in infrastructure towards social value and partnership working, the paper suggests a whole-system asset framework as a focus for collaborative design, planning and investment. In using this shared vision and asset framework, infrastructure investments might be aligned to support health & wellbeing outcomes for communities.