INCREASING THE IMPACT OF BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY RESEARCH: CREATING EVIDENCE ABOUT THE ‘20-MINUTE NEIGHBOURHOOD’

BILLIE GILES-CORTI

Professor Emerita, RMIT University

The built environment can enable or hinder achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of’ more people, more active’ very day. Well implemented urban planning policies have a key-part to play. The ’20-minute neighbourhood’ and the ’15-minute city’ have become popularised in public policy circles in recent years; and represent an excellent opportunity for active living advocates to achieve their goals. For example, the 20-minute neighbourhood has been a feature of the Victorian Government’s Plan Melbourne since around 2014 and has been championed by the World Economic Forum, and during the Pandemic, the global organization C40 with its network of mega-city Mayors, committed to ‘build back better’ and create 15-minute cities that encourage walking, cycling and public transport. These concepts would help tackle multiple wicked problems in cities: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution; tackling climate change; and promoting health and wellbeing. For someone who has been undertaking built environment and physical activity research for over 20 years, these policy positions have been music to my ears. However, these concepts are easy to say, and difficult to deliver. If we are to deliver the 20-minute neighbourhood in Australia for example, how close should destinations be to optimise physical activity outcomes? Where and how should destinations be spatially located? What levels of density are required to increase the feasibility of making these destinations available to all? Moreover, who supports these policies? Rather than seeing the 20-minute neighbourhood as a way of tackling spatial inequities and promoting health, post-pandemic conspiracy theories have sparked fears that governments plan to restrict people’s movement in cities. Are these views widespread? Using the 20-minute neighbourhood as a case study, this talk will consider how researchers can optimise the potential pathways to impact of built environment and active living research, by undertaking policy-relevant research that informs policy and practice.

About Billie Giles-Corti

Billie Giles-Corti is Professor Emerita at RMIT University, with a distinguished career spanning nearly three decades. She and her multi-disciplinary research team have made significant strides in studying the impact of the built environment on health and wellbeing. 

From 2017-2022, she led the Healthy Liveable Cities Lab in RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research and the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Liveable Communities. She was also a Chief Investigator for the NHMRC-supported Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, leading a national liveability study which culminated in the launch of the Australian Urban Observatory in 2022. 

Her extensive work includes co-leading The Lancet Series on Urban Design, Transport, and Health in 2016 and a second Lancet Global Health series in 2022, involving over 80 collaborators from 25 cities across 19 countries and six continents. 

Billie Giles-Corti is a Fulbright Scholar, an Honorary Fellow of both the Planning Institute of Australia and the Public Health Association, and has published over 400 articles, book chapters, and reports. She is ranked in the top 1% of researchers globally by citations. 

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