Choosing tools for building healthy spaces: an overview of guidance toolkits available from North America and Australia

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Abstract
In response to the growing evidence supporting healthy built environments as a means of promoting health, several checklist-based knowledge translation tools have been designed for public health practitioners, urban planners and policy-makers. These tools have increased, but to date no comparison has been done of the quality or value of these tools to users for evaluating city plans for healthy built environment features. A search of both peer-reviewed literature and grey literature yielded 10 checklist-based tools from North America and Australia that were evidence-informed. The checklist criteria in each tool were evaluated using a thematic analysis. Themes were further classified into six settings. Tools were compared based on the breadth of settings assessed and usability for evaluating city plans. Our analysis identified that tools varied widely in the breadth of content with several tools addressing less than half the settings. Overall more recently published tools scored as more useful and in-depth. Transportation, urban design and open spaces were most addressed both within tools and across all tools. There is significant variation in quality and concepts covered across tools and no single tool is best used across all settings.

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