Dr. Trevor Hancock
Dr Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and health promotion consultant and is currently a Professor and Senior Scholar at the new School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria. Over the past 30 years he has worked as a consultant for local communities, municipal, provincial and national governments, health care organizations, NGOs and the World Health Organization. His main areas of interest are population health promotion, healthy cities and communities, public health, healthy public policy, environment and health, healthy and 'green' hospitals, health policy and planning, and health futurism. He has been described as “one of the ten best health futurists in the world”.
The main focus of his work has been in the area of healthy cities and communities and he is one of the founders of the global HealthyCities and Communities movement. He was an Advisor and consultant to WHO Europe's Healthy Cities initiative and co-authored the original background paper for the project in 1986. He was the principal consultant for the Healthy Toronto 2000 project; wrote the proposal for and was a consultant to the Canadian Healthy Communities Network; was the founding Chair of the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition; has consulted to healthy city/community projects in several countries (notably Sweden and the USA) as well as across Canada and has recently helped to re-establish the BC Healthy Communities Initiative.
In recent years he has been invited as a keynote speaker at international Healthy Cities Conferences in Brazil, China and Taiwan and in 2006 he conducted a week-long Summer Institute in HealthyCities and Communities at DeakinUniversity, Melbourne. In 2008 he received the Humanitarian Award from the International Society for Urban Health for his contributions to urban health.
Trevor has had a particular interest in the relationship between both the built and natural environments and health in cities, and has written and spoken extensively on the links between urban planning (and more generally, the design professions) and public health. This was the subject of his Hallman Lectureship at the University of Waterloo in 2008. He has also had a longstanding interest in the relationship between human and ecosystem health and the need to integrate health and sustainability at the community level.
Nationally, he is a member of the Canadian Reference Group on Social Determinants of Health, and a member of two Public Health Agency of Canada Expert Groups, one on the Settings Approach, one on the Economics of Upstream Health Interventions. He also is a member of the Board of the Child and Nature Alliance, the Stewardship Council of the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care (which he co-founded) and the Advisory Council of the Arts and Health Network Canada.
Internationally, he was a member of the Knowledge Network on Urban Settings (part of the new WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health), a member of the Advisory Board for the Urban HEART project of the WHO Kobe Centre for Health and Development, and a member of the Global Research Network on Urban Health Equity.
Selected recent career highlights
2009 – 10Member, Global Research Network on Urban Health Equity, Rockefeller Foundation
2009Consultant and resource person, CPHA/Brazil Intersectoral Action for Health” Project, Recife and Curitiba, Brazil
2008Recipient, Humanitarian Award, International Society for Urban Health
2008Hallman Visiting Lecturer, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo
Consultant and resource person, CPHA/Brazil Intersectoral Action for Health” Project, Recife and Curitiba, Brazil
2006 - 08Member, Knowledge Network on Urban Settlements, WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health
2006“Shaping Regional Development for a Healthier Future” Plenary presentation, 1st International Healthy Cities Conference, Shanghai, China
2006Conducted a week-long Summer Institute in HealthyCities and Communities, DeakinUniversity, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
2005“Sustainable Human Development: The Deeper Implications of Healthy Cities” – Plenary presentation, 2nd International Healthy Cities Conference, Taipei, Taiwan
2004“Introduction to Healthy Cities” Plenary presentation, and “Toronto – Where it all began”, 1st International Healthy Cities Conference, Taipei, Taiwan
Selected relevant publications
2010Warren Smit, Trevor Hancock, Jacob Kumaresen, Carlos Santos-Burgoa,Raúl Sánchez-Kobashi Menesesand Sharon Friel (2010)Urban Planning/ Design and Health Equity: A Review London: Global Research Network on Urban Health Equity
2001"From public health to the healthy city" In R. Loreto and T. Price (eds.), Urban Policy Issues: Canadian Perspectives (2nd edition). Toronto: OxfordUniversity Press
2000“Healthy Communities Must Be Sustainable Communities Too” Public Health Reports 115 (2 and 3);151-6
1997 “Healthy, sustainable communities: concept, fledgling practice and implications for governance” In Roseland, Mark (Ed) Eco-City Dimensions: Healthy Communities, Healthy Planet Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Press
1996"Planning and creating healthy and sustainable cities: the challenge for the 21st century" In C. Price and A. Tsouros (eds.), Our Cities, Our Future: Policies and Action for Health and Sustainable Development. Copenhagen: WHO Healthy Cities Project Office.
1988(with L. Duhl) Healthy Cities: Promoting Health in the Urban Context. WHO Healthy Cities Paper No. 1. Copenhagen: FADL Publications.
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