Family journeys to school: "It's life or death sometimes"

This film was created alongside a toolkit for practitioners working on traffic and street improvements to use as part of their engagement work with the public. It introduces the need for change by highlighting the impacts of traffic on health and wellbeing through the sharing of people’s direct experiences.

In the film, families reveal their concerns about air quality, safety, the overall stress of travelling through busy roads and streets, and injustice facing those living in the most affected areas. The impacts of toxic fumes on respiratory health, the danger of busy roads and obstructed pavements and the unpredictable nature of drivers are all described. 

The toolkit, ‘Designing health-informed public engagement’ provides practical tips based on learning from the challenges around introducing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in England, framing theory and our testing of health-informed creative engagement materials. It includes ideas around introducing the rationale for change, the design of early public engagement – including a deliberative approach to in-person engagement – and examples of health framing, as well as checklists of key considerations.

The intention is to help local government practitioners use health evidence and draw on lived experience introduce and deliberate traffic and street improvements with the public.

The film was produced by Drummer TV and commissioned by the TRUUD public engagement intervention team at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).