Sustainable cities and the effect on Tamaki Makarau

Professors Erica Hinckson and Scott Duncan will present on Sustainable cities and the effect on Tamaki Makarau

Professor Erica Hinckson (PhD) is the Head of the School of Sport and Recreation and Associate Dean AUT-Millennium at the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at Auckland University of Technology. Areas of expertise include the measurement and classification of physical activity, programme design and evaluation, curriculum-based health and wellbeing interventions for children, and determining the effects of the built environment and daily mobility on health outcomes. He is particularly interested in engaging children in healthy lifestyles through traditional unstructured play and independent mobility.

Current research includes several large-scale lifestyle interventions in school, community, and workplace settings.

An executive member of the Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicators Collaboration (https://cur.org.au/project/project-global-healthy-and-sustainable-city-indicators-collaboration/) for the identification and measurement of health-related policy and spatial indicators in cities worldwide. An outcome of this collaboration is the 2022 The Lancet-Global Health five article Series (https://www.thelancet.com/series/urban-design-2022) and the Global Healthy and Sustainable Cities Observatory (https://www.healthysustainablecities.org/) which houses scorecards and reports for each city with the vision to include 1000 cities.

A professor with expertise in physical activity, built environment, and citizen science research. Currently, a project leader in an ~8mil MBIE grant (2020), Te Hotonga Hapori-Connecting Communities: Enhancing the impact of major urban regeneration on community wellbeing.  Taking a shared leadership approach as per Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles and supported by key external partners, the team developed a Centre Of Research Excellence application, Te Kākano-Centre for wellbeing through physical activity and sport by mobilising the academic, sport, recreation, health and other sectors https://vimeo.com/289375276.

Erica Hinckson, Professor of Physical Activity and the Environment at AUT and contributing author of the study, says the availability and quality of urban planning and transport policies supporting health and sustainability in Auckland is ‘below average’ compared to other cities in the international study.

“Our research shows that Tāmaki Makaurau does not appear to have urban planning and transport policies incorporating health-focused actions and air pollution management, or housing density and street connectivity standards,” says Hinckson.

Professor Scott Duncan (PhD) is the Head of the Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Department in the School of Sport and Recreation, AUT University.