Pla de Barris — Barcelona's €150m Neighbourhood Plan With a Quasi-Experimental Health Evaluation

Pla de Barris (2016-2020) was Barcelona City Council's multicomponent, intersectoral and community-engaged programme to reduce inequalities in 16 disadvantaged neighbourhoods with 225,631 residents in 2016. Budget: €150 million (about €105m investment, €35m services, €10m overhead); a further €150m phase followed for 2021-2024.
Bartoll-Roca et al. (PLOS ONE, 2024) ran a quasi-experimental pre-post evaluation with a comparison group, using Barcelona Health Surveys 2016 and 2021 (about 1,160 respondents per wave). In high-intensity areas (above a median of €727.6 per capita) women showed 15.5% less poor mental health, 21.7% less poor self-perceived health and 13.7% more physical activity.
The results are uneven: no significant improvement for men, who showed a 10.3% relative increase in psychotropic drug use in high-intensity areas; benefits were concentrated in 9 high-investment neighbourhoods and not seen in the 7 others (per the ASPB report); no favourable effect on traffic injuries or noise perception. Authors flag small samples, short follow-up and confounding by the post-2008 crisis and COVID-19.

Read the full analysis: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0300470