The Place Standard Tool is a participatory tool that lets participants assess the quality of a defined place (e.g., part of a city, neighborhood, new quarter). It helps structure a discussion by considering both physical and social aspects of a given place. It was first launched in 2015 by Public Health Scotland and comprises 14 categories that can be evaluated in a quantitative and qualitative way:
- Moving Around
- Public Transport
- Traffic and Parking
- Streets and Spaces
- Natural Space
- Play and Recreation
- Facilities and Services
- Work and Local Economy
- Housing and Community
- Social Interaction
- Identity and Belonging
- Feeling Safe
- Care and Maintenance
- Influence and Sense of Control
The 14 categories of the Place Standard Tool help structure discussion around the physical and social qualities of a place. (Own work)
For each of the categories, the tool offers a main question and further prompts to support conversation. The main question focuses on how each of the 14 aspects of a place is rated on a scale from 1 (lot of room for improvement) to 7 (very little improvement needed). Participants should then also record what is good about each category right now and how it could be made better in the future. The additional prompts to support conversation focus on more specific aspects such as accessibility or equity. The Place Standard Tool can be used during different stages of a community health promotion process, e.g. needs assessment or mapping community resources. It offers a spider diagram visualization of the results to depict the strengths and weaknesses of the place. Any population group can use the Place Standard Tool (e.g., communities and professionals) and there are different ways of using it, i.e. online or in form of a group discussion. Currently, there are more than 12 country and language specific adaptations of the tool and further adaptations are planned, also within the Joint Action PreventNCD.
Within the framework of JA PreventNCD, this tool was implemented in the intervention developed in Paiporta (Spain), a municipality affected by the DANA floods in 2024. Concretely, two versions of the tool have already been applied in the pilot: the Spanish adaptation Entornos de Vida - validated in 2022 by Ocaña-Ortiz and co-workers1 - and the new youth-focused version currently in pilot stage.
The tool was first presented to local government and technical teams, followed by the creation of a steering group involving municipal staff, associations and local stakeholders. The implementation then progressed in two phases: an initial training with the steering group, and subsequent community sessions with youth, older adults, caregivers of people with disabilities, migrant women and open neighbourhood groups. Each session included small groups of around eight participants, facilitated discussions and structured recording of responses.
Results were strongly shaped by the impact of the DANA, which emerged across nearly all dimensions. Residents consistently linked their assessments to flood damage affecting streets, infrastructure, public spaces and housing. While some dimensions such as identity, belonging and social contact scored positively due to increased community cohesion after the disaster, others revealed persistent challenges, including transport limitations, lack of green spaces and damaged facilities. A general saturation of themes was observed across sessions, with limited variation between groups, except for adolescents, who expressed distinct perspectives on identity and belonging.
In Paiporta, although health was introduced as a framing concept, it tended to fade during the discussions, thought it remained implicit in almost topics. The tool was considered accessible and effective, particularly due to small-group facilitation, which supported rich qualitative input and spontaneous proposals for both immediate community actions and longer-term urban interventions.
Annegret Dreher, Jennifer Hubrich and Christina Plantz
Federal Institute of Public Health, Germany
Paula Re and Ana Ocaña
Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (Fisabio), Spain
References
1. Ocaña-Ortiz, Ana, Paredes-Carbonell, Joan Josep, Peiró-Pérez, Rosana, Pérez-Sanz, Elena, & Gea-Caballero, Vicente. (2022). Evaluación participativa del territorio con enfoque de equidad: adaptación y validación de la Place Standard al contexto español. Gaceta Sanitaria, 36(4), 360-367. Epub 19 de diciembre de 2022.https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gaceta.2021.03.006