Revealing the health co-benefits of sustainable mobility

Year 2022, the city of York approved its plans to become the UK's first car-free city centre.

Around the same time, the U.S. delivery service - UPS - committed to purchasing 10 000 electric vehicles so that 40% of their fleet will run on alternative fuels by 2025.

The primary goal of both of these initiatives is to reduce carbon emissions and prevent the threat posed by climate change. For the city of York, that also meant committing to carbon neutrality by 2030.

But the benefits of these plans extend beyond reducing carbon emissions: air pollution will decrease, and the general public will embrace walking and cycling in city centres, as there will be less traffic.

Unmasking the health co-benefits of mobility plans

Kausal recently collaborated with the City of Lappeenranta, Finland, to develop a model that identifies the health co-benefits of specific climate actions.

Building on this success, the model is now being utilised to standardise mobility actions with significant health implications. This effort aims to create an innovative health co-benefit assessment tool that will change the way urban planning and climate strategies are evaluated.

The project is backed by UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research and VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland, and has been commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs as part of the Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) program. It represents a positive step forward in integrating health considerations into climate action planning.

In short, the solution helps cities, researchers, and citizens understand how the transition to sustainable transportation also improves the health and well-being of city inhabitants. It does this by calculating how improved air quality and an increase in physical activity will reduce the number of premature deaths caused by pollution and traffic. It then provides the economic impact of these improved health outcomes.

This insight is invaluable for decision-makers at cities, municipalities and transportation companies. It empowers them to make choices that don't just benefit the environment but public health as well.

The science behind the solution

The backbone of the health co-benefit solution is built on two well-validated scientific models:

1. The World Health Organisation's (WHO) Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) for walking and cycling. This model evaluates the reduction in premature deaths by analysing three key factors: changes in physical activity levels, exposure to air pollution during walking or cycling, and the risk of traffic-related accidents.

2. The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare's (THL) model about the disease burden of air pollution. This focuses on life-year loss caused by all types of air pollution. This is unlike HEAT, which only considers traffic pollution.

By integrating these models, Kausal has developed an accurate health co-benefits model that is fully incorporated into Kausal Paths, as exemplified by the first implementation for the city of Lappeenranta.

Seamless integration for existing kausal clients

For NetZeroPlanner users, this health co-benefit model is available as a purchased add-on.

Not familiar with the Kausal Platform and want to know more? Book a demo with us.