The architecture of mental health: identifying the combination of apartment building design requirements for positive mental health outcomes.

Background: Housing quality is a crucial determinant of mental health. While the construction of high-rise buildings is a popular policy strategy for accommodating population growth in cities, there is considerable debate about the health consequences of living in poorly designed apartments. Drawing on three Australian state government apartment design policies introduced to improve apartment design quality, this study aimed to identify the combination of design requirements that were optimally supportive of positive mental health. Methods: K-means cluster analyses identified groups of buildings (n = 172) that were homogenous in their implementation of a mix of n = 80 measured design requirements. Positive mental health was measured using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS). Linear mixed-effects models controlling for demographic characteristics, self-selection factors and clustering of participants within buildings compared residents in the different clusters. Findings: Residents in the "high policy performance buildings", characterised by having a greater implementation of n = 29 design requirements across nine design elements, had significantly higher (+1.96 points) WEMWBS scores compared with residents in the "low policy performance buildings". Interpretation: This study is the first to empirically identify a mix of policy-specific architecture design requirements that are associated with positive mental health in apartment residents. These findings provide vital empirical evidence to inform national and international apartment and high-rise housing policies, and design instruments and practices to protect people's health in apartment dwellings. Funding: The High Life project is funded by a Healthway Research Intervention Project grant (#31986) and an Australian Research Council (ARC), Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) (DE160100140). NE is supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project (LP190100558). SF is supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship (FT210100899).

Measuring the high life: A method for assessing apartment design policy implementation.

This paper introduces a comprehensive method to measure the implementation of residential apartment design policies in Australia. It describes a protocol for extracting and measuring potentially health-enhancing policy-specific design requirements derived from three current residential apartment design policies in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. These requirements focus on ten key design elements: (1) solar access, (2) natural ventilation, (3) private open space, (4) communal open space, (5) circulation spaces, (6) acoustic privacy, (7) outlook and (8) visual privacy, (9) bicycle and car parking and (10) apartment mix. This paper also describes the computation of scores to quantify the levels of on-ground implementation of the design requirements and compliance with the policies. The method will allow researchers to objectively quantify, benchmark and assess the uptake of apartment policy in apartment design and construction to inform future policy development. • Measurements were developed to systematically assess apartment buildings for their implementation of specific design requirements stipulated by State Government design policies. • Policy implementation was defined as the degree to which the apartment buildings adhered to the requirements outlined by the apartment design policies. A scoring system was developed to quantify policy implementation at both the apartment and building levels. • This method can be replicated to allow researchers to objectively quantify, benchmark and assess the uptake of apartment policy in apartment design and construction to inform future policy development.

Exploring the potential for planning support systems to bridge the research-translation gap between public health and urban planning.

BACKGROUND: There is consensus that planning professionals need clearer guidance on the features that are likely to produce optimal community-wide health benefits. However, much of this evidence resides in academic literature and not in tools accessible to the diverse group of professionals shaping our cities. Incorporating health-related metrics into the planning support systems (PSS) provides an opportunity to apply empirical evidence on built environment relationships with health-related outcomes to inform real-world land use and transportation planning decisions. This paper explores the role of planning support systems (PSS) to facilitate the translation and application of health evidence into urban planning and design practices to create healthy, liveable communities. METHODS: A review of PSS software and a literature review of studies featuring a PSS modelling built environmental features and health impact assessment for designing and creating healthy urban areas was undertaken. Customising existing software, a health impact PSS (the Urban Health Check) was then piloted with a real-world planning application to evaluate the usefulness and benefits of a health impact PSS for demonstrating and communicating potential health impacts of design scenarios in planning practice. RESULTS: Eleven PSS software applications were identified, of which three were identified as having the capability to undertake health impact analyses. Three studies met the inclusion criteria of presenting a planning support system customised to support health impact assessment with health impacts modelled or estimated due to changes to the built environment. Evaluation results indicated the Urban Health Check PSS helped in four key areas: visualisation of how the neighbourhood would change in response to a proposed plan; understanding how a plan could benefit the community; Communicate and improve understanding health of planning and design decisions that positively impact health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The use of health-impact PSS have the potential to be transformative for the translation and application of health evidence into planning policy and practice, providing those responsible for the policy and practice of designing and creating our communities with access to quantifiable, evidence-based information about how their decisions might impact community health.

High Life Study protocol: a cross-sectional investigation of the influence of apartment building design policy on resident health and well-being.

INTRODUCTION: The rapid increase in apartment construction in Australia has raised concerns about the impacts of poorly designed and located buildings on resident health and well-being. While apartment design policies exist, their content varies across jurisdictions and evidence on their impact on health and well-being is lacking. This cross-sectional observational study (2017-2021) aims to generate empirical evidence to guide policy decisions on apartment development and help to create healthy, equitable higher-density communities. Objectives include to benchmark the implementation of health-promoting apartment design requirements and to identify associations between requirements and resident health and well-being outcomes. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Eligible buildings in three Australian cities with different apartment design guidelines will be stratified by area disadvantage and randomly selected (~n=99). Building architects, developers and local governments will be approached to provide endorsed development plans from which apartment and building design features will be extracted. Additional data collection includes a resident survey (~n=1000) to assess environmental stressors and health and well-being impacts and outcomes, and geographic information systems measures of the neighbourhood. The study has 85% power to detect a difference of 0.5 SD in the primary outcome of mental well-being (Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale) at a 5% level of significance. Analyses will compare policy compliance and health-promoting design features between cities and area disadvantage groups. Regression models will test whether higher policy compliance (overall and by design theme) is associated with better health and well-being, and the relative contribution of the neighbourhood context. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Human Research Ethics Committees of RMIT University (CHEAN B 21146-10/17) and the University of Western Australia (RA/4/1/8735) approved the study protocol. In addition to academic publications, the collaboration will develop specific health-promoting indicators to embed into the monitoring of apartment design policy implementation and impact, and co-design research dissemination materials to facilitate uptake by decision makers.