Session: Built Environment Institute I. Health by Design: A public health framework
4128.0: Tuesday, November 18, 2003: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM
Oral
Built Environment Institute I. Health by Design: A public health framework
Achieving the vision of “healthy people in healthy communities,” articulated in Healthy People 2010 (U.S. DHHS, 2000), is also the vision and the overall goal of the Built Environment Institute. Our cities and suburbs are becoming more similar, and there is good evidence to show that the demographic and health profiles that were previously uniquely urban are now shared by “edge cities” and poor and minority suburbs. Moreover, unrestrained growth attributes of suburbanization and sprawl show no evidence of slowing. Health – from the perspective of improving our community environments where 80 percent of the U.S. population lives, works, and raises its children, and spends nearly 90% of their time indoors – must become a higher priority among public health workers, educators, architects, planners, designers, engineers, manufacturers, policy developers, companies, and individuals around the world. Knowledge must be brokered from current "silos" not merely to summarize or describe or to say that the built environment influences fundamental causes of disease and health inequality, but to (1) determine measures and tools to assist with the creation of a solid scientific base from which to determine environmental and human health impact from chronic exposure to the built environment, (2) identify what kinds of constructed environments and their components produce a healthier and more sustainable way of life, and (3) identify successes and challenges toward healthy community design and sustainable growth. In this session, presenters will provide a theoretical framework of healthy community design and discuss how components of design are potentially linked to human health – biologically, psychologically, and socially.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will (1) recognize how less traditional factors, such as housing characteristics, land-use and transportation choices, consumption and sustainability issues, and architectural and design decisions, impact the public’s health, and (2) begin to build an awareness of how infrastructure is potentially linked to human health biologically, psychologically and socially.
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organizer(s):Allen Dearry
Neal L. Rosenblatt, MS, MSC
Moderator(s):Allen Dearry
12:30 PMIntroductory Remarks
12:35 PMHealthy communities must also be sustainable communities
Trevor Hancock, MD, MHSc, BS
12:55 PMBuilt environments and social environments: Connections and implications for health
Amy Schultz, PhD
1:15 PMCreating a healthy environment: The impact of the built environment on public health
Richard J. Jackson, MD, PhD
1:35 PMDiscussion
1:55 PMConcluding Remarks
Organized by:Environment
Endorsed by:Community-Based Public Health Caucus; International Health; Medical Care; Occupational Health and Safety; Public Health Education and Health Promotion; Public Health Student Caucus; Social Work
CE Credits:CME, Environmental Health, Nursing, Pharmacy

The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA