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Local Health Planning and Governance

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Healthy Cities

Abstract

We look at local government health planning as a governance challenge, rather than a mere technocratic endeavour in the hands of civil servants and bureaucrats. Planning is about the journey in policy development and implementation. We review planning history and types, and hinge the current status quo of the field on efforts in community development, urban planning and social/health planning that emerged in the last 60 years. In seeing planning as a form of governance we highlight governance arrangements for health at the local level in the United Kingdom, Germany, Victoria (Australia) and the Netherlands as proxies for the various modalities that can be found around the world. Detailed case descriptions of local health planning and governance practices are provided for Victoria where municipal health policy is required by law, based on a Healthy City-type conceptualization of four Environments for Health (E4H)—the social, built, economic and natural environment. Evaluations show that this radical step-change for local health planning has been successful, but remains dependent on good governance practices and skills and capabilities of a wide range of professionals, bureaucrats, communities and health organizations. Embracing diversity and flexibility and integral elements of good governance is important.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health Equity Training, Research & Evaluation (CHETRE), University of New South Wales, South Western Sydney Local Health District, Ingham Institute, Locked Bag 7103, Liverpool, BC, NSW 1871, Australia

    Evelyne de Leeuw

  2. College of Science, Health and Engineering, School of Psychology and Public Health, Department of Public Health, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia

    Vivian Lin

Authors
  1. Evelyne de Leeuw
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  2. Vivian Lin
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Correspondence to Evelyne de Leeuw .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health Equity Training, Research & Evaluation (CHETRE), University of New South Wales, South Western Sydney Local Health District, Ingham Institute, Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia

    Evelyne de Leeuw

  2. Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, Campus Biotech, Geneva, Switzerland

    Jean Simos

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de Leeuw, E., Lin, V. (2017). Local Health Planning and Governance. In: de Leeuw, E., Simos, J. (eds) Healthy Cities. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6694-3_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6694-3_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-6692-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-6694-3

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