52nd International Making Cities Livable Conference

Sustainable Places Research Fellow Dr Yi Gong presented at the 52nd International Making Cities Livable Conference in Bristol in July where she talked about the geographic variations in the relationships between air pollution and disability-free life expectancy in England.

While Total Life Expectancy continues to increase, it doesn’t mean we are healthier or that we have a better quality of life. New research has started to show that it is not just how many years you have left that matters, but how many healthy years. There is growing interest in links between poor health and environmental inequalities, where low levels of environmental justice contribute to health inequalities, independent of other factors such as socio-economic position. By analysing Office of National Statistics Disability Free Life Expectancy data, Yi's research aims to explore how Health Expectancy is affected by the quality of the physical environment in which people live in England and Wales, and hopes to improve current policies aimed at reducing health inequalities by linking them with planning and environmental policies.