The Healthy Urban Places project (HUP) is exploring how the places where people live can impact their physical and mental health. The project focuses on two areas – Liverpool City Region and the Bradford District – which have large population datasets that can help researchers understand the long-term health effects of local environments.

HUP brings together researchers, communities, local governments, and other organizations to co-produce research on what makes a healthy place, which features of a place are most important for health, and how changes to local areas can improve health and reduce inequalities. It is using a variety of methods, including community-based research, citizen science, and economic modelling, to generate evidence to support policies and interventions that create healthier urban environments. HUP aims to understand how we can harness the power of local places to reduce inequalities and improve population health and wellbeing.