Building Healthy Community Environments: A Public Health Approach

Abstract

Environmental quality has a profound effect on health and the burden of disease. In the United States, the environmentrelated burden of disease is increasingly dominated by chronic diseases. At the local level, public health practitioners realize that many policy decisions affecting environmental quality and health transcend the authorities of traditional health department programs. Healthy decisions about the built environment, including housing, transportation, and energy, require broad collaborative efforts. Environmental health professionals have an opportunity to address the shift in public health burden toward chronic diseases and play an important role in the design of healthy communities by bringing data and tools to decision makers. This article provides a guide for community leaders to consider the public health effects of decisions about the built environment. We present a conceptual framework that represents a shift from compartmentalized solutions toward an inclusive systems approach that encourages partnership across disciplines and sectors. We discuss practical tools to assist with environmental decision making, such as Health Impact Assessments, environmental public health tracking, and cumulative risk assessment. We also identify priorities in research, practice, and education to advance the role of public health in decision making to improve health, such as the Health Impact Assessment, as a core competency for environmental health practitioners. We encourage cross-disciplinary communication, research, and education that bring the fields of planning, transportation, and energy in closer collaboration with public health to jointly advance the systems approach to today's environmental challenges.

Towards the Healthy Community: Residents’ Perceptions of Integrating Urban Agriculture into the Old Community Micro-Transformation in Guangzhou, China

“…The goals of sustainable community development are to increase land production by maximizing resource utilization, to promote resource recycling by utilizing waste, to promote a sustainable lifestyle by changing the community environment to relax the residents' spirit and stabilize their emotions, to improve communication by encouraging every member to participate in community building, and to foster community attachment by holding interactive activities. As western experts and scholars have done in recent years, one of the sustainable development paths of old communities is to improve health and enhance well-being [31,32], which is in line with the goals of community sustainable development ( Figure 1). The definition of health was set out by WHO (1946) as follows: 'Health is not merely the absence of disease and infirmity but a state of optimal physical, mental and social well-being' [33,34].…”

The Coordinated Development and Regulation Research on Public Health, Ecological Environment and Economic Development: Evidence from the Yellow River Basin of China

“…Based on empirical data, Wells and Evans explained the relationship between public health and the ecological living environment of citizens [ 22 ]. Given the existing research results, Koehler et al proposed a conceptual framework to consider the impact of environmental decision-making on public health, further emphasizing that public health is not only related to the living environment but also to local transportation and energy [ 23 ]. Various resources in the ecological environment are closely related to the survival of human beings, and they also have a significant impact on the public health level.…”

Big Data Reality Check (BDRC) for public health: to what extent the environmental health and health services research did meet the ‘V’ criteria for big data? A study protocol

“…Recent studies reported that 23% of deaths between 2006 and 2016 were attributable to environmental causes 4 5. Environmental health once focused on the prevention of infectious diseases; however, the focus has shifted toward chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases 6. The WHO estimated that ischaemic heart disease is the biggest killer worldwide (16% of total deaths) in 2019 7.…”