Built environment: Influence of urban sprawl on health and well-being

When people consider factors adversely affecting their health, they generally focus on influences, such as poor diet or the need for more exercise. Rarely do they consider less traditional factors, such as housing characteristics, land-use patterns, transportation choices, or architectural or urban-design decisions, as potential health hazards. Yet the built environment influences public health as much as vaccines or water quality. Sprawl — uncontrolled, poorly planned, low-density, and single-use community growth — affects the public's health through increased air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, decreased physical activity, mental health consequences, and other ways. To assure the health and quality of life of Americans, we must integrate our concepts of “public health issues” with “urban planning issues.” The public health and medical community must play an active role in the land-use and development decisions made in their community. It is their role to make policy makers and planners aware of the health impacts of the decisions they make. Similarly, urban planners, engineers, and architects must begin to see that they have a critical role in public health. This presentation will examine the direct and indirect impacts of sprawl on health and well-being, and discuss the opportunities for improving public health through alternative approaches to design, land use, and transportation.