Healthy City Explorer Bursary Study Visit

Christine McKee, who is a Public Health Registrar with the Public Health Agency, travelled to the Netherlands between 3-7 September as part of the Healthy City Explorer Bursary.

This bursary has been offered by Belfast Healthy Cities since 2014 and allows individuals working in the field of health and wellbeing, including healthy urban planning and design, to visit another WHO European Healthy City or National Network to study their approach to addressing a key issue relating to health inequalities.

As part of her study visit, Christine has met a wide range of public health stakeholders in the cities of Utrecht and The Hague including the Public Health department in Utrecht, the Dutch Alliance for Health Literacy and other national and local departments that work on childhood obesity prevention. She has also visited a Care farm that provides a healthy learn and work setting that helps people from all ages to develop new skills and insights together. The learning outcomes from this study trip will be disseminated within the PHA in order to shape future health literacy programmes. The learning outcomes will be presented by Christine during the Belfast Healthy Cities’ Annual General Meeting on 11th December.