PLACE and Workspace mental and physical wellbeing
Regular physical activity is, across the age spectrum, associated with a range of physical, cognitive and mental health benefits. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Public Health England have guidelines on the amount of activity that people should be doing each week.
Within the workplace and home, the benefits of exercise and space and access to green places for our colleagues, families and communities are clear.
VINCI UK Developments wanted to investigate these links and understand the impact on those within a new development as well as beyond its traditional ‘red line’ land boundary and the extent to which community exercise programs can help improve wellbeing and life satisfaction.
We are working with Lifeproven to encourage Harlow Innovation Park employees and the local community alike to exercise more.
By encouraging physical activity in and around the newly built Harlow Innovation Park, we aim to identify how the activity and animation programmes and design of the Innovation Park itself, can, over time, influence and enhance the physical and mental health of the local community. This research will further inform how we operate the Innovation Park in support of employee and community exercise programmes in future and help improve how we design and build community focused developments to maximise these outcomes for all.
We have invited all Harlow Innovation Park local residents and staff who live, work and spend their time in and around the Park to participate anonymously in a new online research study which will investigate how facilitated physical activity can improve the health and wellbeing of the community.
We set out to understand:
- How such activity influences the physical & mental health of a community
- How such activity influences the physical and mental health of employees in the workplace
- What exercise programs & support are best & most engaging for the Harlow community
- How the design of the Innovation Park influences the physical activity patterns of the local community
What is the aim of the research?
The primary aim is to understand the extent to which exercise programmes lead to better health, wellbeing and quality of life for the employees on the Harlow Innovation Park and the wider local community members.
The secondary aims are to understand how the newly regenerated Harlow Innovation Park influences the physical activity patterns of locals and their ongoing health and wellbeing, and how we can best apply this learning into future scheme planning.