Transport and health--a five-country perspective

Devolution in the UK has, inadvertently, provided a natural experiment for comparing the impact of different approaches to policy and practice on populations that are broadly similar by most criteria. Realizing the potential gold mine that this presents for comparing policy and practice in the field of public health, the UK Public Health Association has established a Devolution Strategic Interest Group to explore and capitalize on this. From the start, the Group has included the Republic of Ireland in its purview to add an extra dimension of diversity and innovation. Having previously looked at the organization of health care and public health, and at policy and practice on food, nutrition and obesity, the Group opted to look at transport and health this year. Here, the links between separate relevant policy streams are less obvious and clearly less developed than those for food, nutrition and obesity. Also, the perceived need to raise the issue up the public health agenda provides a new challenge to campaigning action for the Group.