A model Built Environment and Public Health course curriculum: Training for an interdisciplinary workforce

Despite growing evidence of the direct and indirect effects of the built environment on public health, planners, who shape the built environment, and public health professionals, who protect the public's health, rarely interact. Most public health professionals have little experience with urban planners, zoning boards, city councils, and others who make decisions about the built environment. Moreover, few planners understand the health implications of design, land use, or transportation decisions. One strategy for bridging this divide is development of interdisciplinary courses in planning and public health that address the health implications of the built environment.

Professional networking and Web-based searches in 2007 led to the identification of six primarily graduate-level courses in the United States that address the links between the built environment and health. Instructors of these courses were invited to collaborate on reviewing course content, assignments and evaluations, and to develop a model built environment and health curriculum that follows a learning-centered approach to course design.

Common content areas in most courses included planning and public health histories, health disparities, interdisciplinary approaches, air and water quality, physical activity, social capital and mental health. Authors propose a model curriculum adaptable in both planning and public health departments to promote interdisciplinary learning.

Results show that students gain planning and public health perspectives through this instruction, benefiting from active learning opportunities. Faculty implementation of the proposed interdisciplinary model curriculum will help bridge the divide between disciplines and enable planners and public health professionals to value, create and promote healthy environments.