Designing healthier urban green and blue spaces: the HEALeD-GBS framework for design-stage health assessment

Source abstract

As cities expand, environmental and public health challenges, including heat stress, air pollution, physical inactivity, and psychological stress, are intensifying. Green and blue spaces are increasingly recognized as multifunctional solutions for mitigating these environmental harms in cities while supporting human health. Despite growing evidence of their health benefits, knowledge remains fragmented, and existing health assessment frameworks typically address only individual health dimensions or fail to integrate health considerations throughout the design process, limiting their ability to inform health-oriented design decisions. To address this gap, this study proposes the Health Evaluation and Assessment framework for the Landscape Design of Green and Blue Spaces (HEALeD-GBS) to support health-oriented decision-making throughout the design process. The framework was developed through an interdisciplinary synthesis of literature across environmental health, landscape and urban design, and environmental psychology. The HEALeD-GBS is the first assessment framework to systematically link three complementary health pathways with assessment criteria, measurable indicators, and evaluation tools for incorporating health into the design process. By enabling potential health impacts to be evaluated before implementation, the HEALeD-GBS helps designers make informed decisions and translate health evidence into practice. It bridges health theory and design practice and provides an integrative foundation for health-oriented urban design.