The Built Environment and Public Health explores the impact on our health of the environments we build for ourselves, and how public health and urban planning can work together to build settings that promote healthy living. This comprehensive text covers origins and foundations of the built environment as a public health focus and its joint history with urban planning, transportation and land use, infrastructure and natural disasters, assessment tools, indoor air quality, water quality, food security, health disparities, mental health, social capital, and environmental justice. The Built Environment and Public Health explores such timely issues as
Basics of the built environment and evidence for its influences
How urban planning and public health intersect
How infrastructure improvements can address chronic diseases and conditions
Meeting the challenges of natural disasters
Policies to promote walking and mass transit
Approaches to assess and improve air quality and our water supply
Policies that improve food security and change how Americans get their food
How the built environment can address needs of vulnerable populations
Evidence-based design practices for hospitals and health care facilities
Mental health, stressors, and health care environments
Theories and programs to improve social capital of low-income communities
How the built environment addresses issues of health equity and environmental justice
This important textbook and resource includes chapter learning objectives, summaries, questions for discussion, and listings of key terms.