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Belfast Healthy Cities

Our vision is that Belfast is recognised globally
as a healthy, equitable and sustainable city

Healthy Cities 21st Century

News Stories

The Chief Executive of Belfast Healthy Cities, Joan Devlin, is stepping down from her role after almost 30 years at the helm. Belfast has been a designated ‘Healthy City’ in the World Health Organization European Healthy Cities Network for 35 years and Joan has been Chief Executive for the vast majority of that time.

Throughout the year, Belfast celebrated 35 years as a designated WHO Healthy City. This culminated in December with a celebration event at Belfast Harbour Office.

Children from across Northern Ireland are spending this year’s Self Care Week learning about pharmacy awareness.  

More than 100 schools are taking part, with pupils from P1 to P7 learning about what it means to be ‘pharmacy aware’.

The Pharmacy Schools Programme, developed by Belfast Healthy Cities and in partnership with the Department of Health, provides children with knowledge and life-skills, enabling them to better understand the role of community pharmacies, what they’re there for and how to use them.

Belfast Healthy Cities welcomed Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Michael McBride, to launch six chapters of the profile publication ‘BELFAST Profiling Health, Wellbeing & Prosperity  - Has COVID-19 changed our city?’ 

The profile chapters are a follow up to the initial chapters produced within ‘BELFAST Profiling Health, Wellbeing & Prosperity: The data behind the people and the city’, produced in 2022. 


Belfast Healthy Cities and Queens University Belfast partnered on a joint webinar, highlighting the intertwined and historical relationship between urban planning, Belfast’s history, and public health. The event saw local experts discuss the profound influence of Belfast's history on the city's current public health landscape.

Anne McCusker, programme manager at Belfast Healthy Cities commented:

Belfast Healthy Cities have launched the East Belfast Green Health Map.

Organisations and community groups were invited to find out more about the resource and how they can share and support use of the Green Health Map moving forward.

The resource was developed by Belfast Healthy Cities in partnership with EastSide Greenways and East Belfast Community Development Agency.

It brings together key messages linked to greening and health, and encourages people to use their local green spaces.

The Green Health Map supports individuals and communities to be: 

Practitioners working to address greening, health, and inequalities in Belfast have completed training with Belfast Healthy Cities and UKPRP GroundsWell Consortium, Queen’s University Belfast.

The Greening for Health Training Workshop: Using Evidence in Practice invited participants to consider how to formulate the right questions when searching for evidence, and how to identify, find, and appraise the evidence needed.

A celebration of the emerging findings of the innovative SPACE Project led by Queen’s University Belfast took place on Friday 30 June 2023. This popular webinar had over 80 participants registered from across academia, local and regional government, health, planning and third sector organisations.
 

Belfast Healthy Cities has led a delegation from Belfast to visit Cork to learn about the work being led by Cork Healthy Cities and Green Spaces for Health to address health inequalities, well-being and the environment.

19 primary school teachers from across Northern Ireland have completed Healthy Places, Healthy Children training with Belfast Healthy Cities. The programme will help teachers as they deliver lessons in the Healthy Places, Healthy Children programme to Key Stage 2 children, and pass on to their pupils the important learnings about their local area and living an active life.

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