At the UK Public Health Association's 17th Annual Forum on 26 March 2009, the UKPHA Health and Sustainable Development Action Group hosted a workshop "Health and Wealth in the 21st Century - what role will public health play?"

A sustainable community?

How will we create communities with a focus on people - their contentment, wellbeing, resilience and fulfilment? Will it be possible within current economic systems and the impacts of climate change? What role should public health play?  Speakers William Bird (Natural England), Anna Coote (New Economics Foundation) and Jonathan Harris (DH East Mids) kicked off discussion.  As a society, can we shift our measures of success from those of economic growth and life expectancy to the more complex but important wellbeing?  And how do we measure this?

This connection has been set up to share insights from the workshop and to invite continuing debate on this important area of policy development - please visit the opinion and discussion pages, and give your views!

 The UK Local Air Quality Managment process was established by the Environment Act 1995. Along with subsequent Guidance, Air Quality Regulations and the National Air Quality Strategy the process sets out requirements for all Local Authorities in the UK to carry out regular Review and Assessments of air quality within their areas.  Where this work indicates that a breach of the governments' Air Quality Objectives can be considered "likely", the authority is requried to designate an Air Quality Management Area and to draw up a subsequent Action Plan in order to act in pursuit of the objectives.

The forum is intended to help facilitate better practice amongst Local Authorities by helping them share their experiences.  In particular we have chosen to use the Climate Connections website to host this forum in order to encourage the integration of the LAQM process with Climate/Carbon Management and Public Health.