Design Perspectives: Health and Wellbeing

In March 2020 Design Council launched its strategy which set the direction of work for the next four years. It has identified three strategic priorities where the greater use of design could make a significant difference and subsequently benefit peoples’ lives: improving health and wellbeing; enabling sustainable living; and increasing design skills.

Improving health and wellbeing, and reducing health inequalities is one of Design Council’s three strategic priorities – a pressing issue that has been brought into sharper focus as a result of the coronavirus. This paper outlines the priority areas where design can be used to address the wider determinants of health and wellbeing as they are currently being experienced in the UK. It is divided into three sections:  

• a review of health inequalities that arise from poverty and unequal access to wider determinants, and the need to focus on preventative, not remedial approaches 
• the role that design is playing in health and wellbeing 
• how design could be used to improve health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities in the future.