The Role of the Architectural Environment in Community Health

Abstract

This discussion reports the status of a 12-year program administered by a statewide health agency to strategically assess, redevelop, and monitor the architectural and facility management performance of its network of community-based public health care facilities. A protocol, the Strategic Facility Improvement initiative, has directly resulted in significant improvements to the major share of a network of over 100 community clinic and clinical support facilities in the State of Louisiana. The SFI initiative provides oversight with respect to the allocation of public health capital improvement infrastructural resources and has guided completion of 55 facility replacement or renovation projects to date. Its administrative mission, organizational structure, and field methodology is presented as a vehicle to significantly improve the architectural condition of clinical and clinical support environments for underrepresented patient populations. The SFI process is discussed as an evidence-based means to foster greater systemic success in capital improvement efforts within public sector health agencies in the United States and in international contexts.

The Physical Environment of Purpose-Built and Non-Purpose-Built Supported Housing for Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities in Sweden

“…Environmental aspects of psychiatric settings and their effect on treatment outcome have been studied, but the greatest interest has been put on the psychosocial environment (Alden, 1978;Collins et al, 1985;Eklund & Hansson, 1997), while the effects of the physical environment have generally been disregarded within the psychiatric field (Verderber & Kimbrell, 2005). Knowledge concerning the effect of the physical environment in supported housing for the psychiatrically disabled has, in a literature review, been found to be very limited (Johansson, 2007).…”