GLA Group Public Health Unit

The Mayor established the Greater London Authority Group Public Health Unit (GLAG PHU) because to reduce health inequalities, we must also tackle the wide ranging factors that affect a person’s health.

These factors include:

• housing
• transport
• environment
• employment and skills
• community safety
• social cohesion and discrimination
• poverty

The GLAG PHU is led by the GLA Group Director of Public Health and is hosted by the GLA.

We work to ensure that prevention, resilience and tackling health inequalities are part of each organisation’s strategy and planning.

We work across the GLA and the four organisations in the wider GLA Group and serve:

• The Mayor, Assembly and GLA
• The London Fire Commissioner (LFC)
• The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and Violence Reduction Unit (VRU)
• The Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC)
• Transport for London (TfL)

The Public Health Unit works closely with the Mayor’s Health and Wellbeing Team, which leads on implementing the Health Inequalities Strategy and delivering the Mayor’s manifesto commitments to support the health of Londoners.

As part of London’s public health ecosystem, the Public Health Unit works alongside local authority public health teams, and regional and national teams in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), the UK Health Security Agency (UKSHA) and the NHS.

The GLA framework of levers for putting health at the heart of policy is a practical tool developed by the GLA Group Public Health Unit that helps us put health at the centre of our work. The framework was developed by the GLA Group Public Health Unit to facilitate the ‘Health in All Policies’ (HiAP) approach. 

The Mayor is committed to improving Londoners’ physical and mental health and reducing health inequalities, and through his responsibilities for transport, housing and policing, among other policy areas, he can play an important part in improving these building blocks and positively impacting Londoners’ health. These benefits can often be through win-win scenarios where non-health policies and programmes improve health, and vice versa, by improving Londoners’ social, economic and environmental conditions.

We encourage you to use the levers framework across the GLA and GLA Group to identify opportunities to incorporate health benefits into non-health policies and programmes.