Objective  Eco-spatial planning and design is an upstream intervention to promote population health, and residents’ contact with natural space can effectively improve their health level. Considering the fact that residents’ well-being is neglected in the current practice of eco-spatial planning and design, it is of great significance to analyze how to integrate the health concept into ecological space.

Methods/process  First, based on the existing research, this research combs out two ways to measure the promoting effect of ecological space on residents’ health, including supply service efficiency and demand service efficiency. The supply service efficiency is to measure the characteristics of ecological space itself, while the demand service efficiency is to measure the nature participation behavior of residents and the change of physical indicators. Secondly, the research analyzes the relationship between health promotion approaches and eco-spatial optimization, and proposes several health-oriented optimization strategies for ecological space. On this basis, the research summarizes and constructs the conceptual framework for eco-spatial planning under the orientation of residents’ health is summarized and constructed, and describes the specific planning methods at each level respectively.

Results/conclusion  The framework consists of improving the health supply efficiency of physical environment, increasing the opportunity for residents to integrate into nature, and enhancing residents’ perception and interaction with nature, and is implemented from the three dimensions of macro pattern supply, meso layout optimization and micro space design. Improving the health supply efficiency of physical environment focuses on improving the regulation and purification functions of ecological space, exploring the potential of stock resources, and building a continuous and efficient ecological spatial pattern, so as to promote the health of residents. Increasing the opportunity for residents to integrate into nature focuses on the efficient supply and feature mining of green space, aiming to promote residents’ contact with and integration into nature by optimizing the differentiated layout of resources and integrating local culture. Enhancing residents’ perception of and interaction with nature focuses on strengthening residents’ perception of ecological nodes and emotional triggers, and guiding the deep interaction between people and nature. There are three important entry points in each scale. The macro pattern supply includes mitigation of heat island effect, reduction of air pollution, and connectivity of fragmented habitats. The meso layout optimization includes the differential supply of green space, the construction of park system, and the coordination of functional neighborhood. The micro space design includes sensory activation, natural interaction and guidance, and deep emotion triggering. The planning framework is connected from top to bottom and implemented at every level. On this basis, Shanghai is selected as the research object, and a node with typical health intervention needs is selected to discuss the current status of its eco-spatial planning and health-oriented practice exploration from the above three scales. All strategies fall directly on space planning and design. At the macro level, it is supposed to optimize the source area layout and strengthen the pollution purification corridor, ventilation corridor and connected biological corridor. At the meso level, it is supposed to improve the coverage rate of green space, build park system and improve park quality. At the micro level, the characteristics of waterfront space should be explored and natural experience scenes should be implanted. This research can provide conceptual and practical reference for strengthening the health effect of ecological space. On the one hand, it can guide the pattern optimization in multi-level national spatial planning and enrich the contents of residents’ well-being in special eco-spatial planning; on the other hand, it can promote the improvement of regional planning at the detailed planning level.