Directory of resources for planning healthy environments

The directory is an online repository with almost 200 open access resources and tools updated on a regular basis that provide information on the importance of planning and designing urban areas from a health perspective, as well as concrete guidance on how to do it.

It includes resources that describe the importance of considering health in urban and territorial planning, tools that quantify the health and socioeconomic impact of planning and designing urban areas from a health perspective, the description of successful initiatives, or training materials on urban planning and health, among others.

Also, it includes resources in different languages – including all the WHO official languages (i.e., Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish) – and from different geographical regions.

It is intended to be useful for all the actors and decision-makers who have a role in promoting healthy and resilient cities or are concerned with the health of the population. This includes a variety of actors from different sectors: national governments, local authorities, public health professionals, urban planners and other actors and stakeholders involved in urban planning and design, and civil society. The directory supports the work towards developing healthy urban environments, and it is helpful for all those interested in the basis for our collective well-being.

The directory builds from the resources included in the Integrating health in urban and territorial planning sourcebook (joint publication by WHO and UN-Habitat), and the publication Supporting a healthy planet, healthy people and health equity through urban and territorial planning (Grant et al., 2022). 

In case you have any questions, please contact the Air Quality and Health Unit,  [email protected]

Last update: November 2023

The update and the corresponding search strategy were prepared by the WHO- Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion based at the Centre for Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (University of Toronto) in collaboration with the WHO-HQ Air Quality and Health Unit and UN-Habitat. The researchers from the University of Toronto included Janna R. Mohamed (research assistant), and Losang T. Sadutshang (MPH practicum student) who worked under the guidance of the Centre’s Director, Erica Di Ruggiero.

© UN-Habitat and World Health Organization, 2022.
Some rights reserved. This work is available under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence.
The resources included in this directory have been identified in the already published publication Integrating health in urban and territorial planning: a sourcebook", by UN-Habitat and the World Health Organization in 2020.