Practitioners' perspectives on health in Strategic Environmental Assessment of spatial planning policies in Scotland.

OBJECTIVES

Local authorities in Scotland are required to produce a Local Development Plan (LDP), which allocates sites for development and sets policies to guide decisions on planning applications. As part of this, local authorities must undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). This is a structured assessment of likely environmental impacts, which includes human health. This study explores how SEA practitioners and SEA consultation authorities consider health.

STUDY DESIGN

Qualitative study design using eight in-depth semi-structured interviews.

METHODS

Individual interviews were carried out with SEA practitioners from six local authority areas in Scotland and two SEA consultation authorities. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically.

RESULTS

Respondents articulated a broad perspective on health, but this was not reflected in SEA practice. Barriers to considering health more fully in SEA included low confidence in assessing health, limited partnership working with public health professionals and the lack of a consultation authority able to cover all aspects of health. Respondents valued partnership work between public health and planning professionals.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests recent work in Scotland to increase understanding of the role of spatial planning to influence health has been successful. However, further work is required to expand this to include links between spatial planning and health inequalities. SEA in Scotland does not currently support holistic consideration of health and health inequalities. Strong partnership working between public health and other sectors can increase understanding of links with health and create healthy places.