Abstract

Using green building as a model for making health promotion standard within the built environment

Kelly Worden, MPH
U.S. Green Building Council, Washington, DC

APHA 2017 Annual Meeting & Expo (Nov. 4 - Nov. 8)

The importance of the built environment as a determinant of health and well-being is well established. However, traditional public health approaches used in isolation will not be enough to make the consideration of health and well-being normative practice among the diverse set of decision makers who determine the form and function of communities. These decision makers cut across sectors and industries and fall into three categories: practitioners (e.g. architects, urban planners, parks and recreation professionals, developers), policymakers (local, regional, state, national), and financiers (public and private). Put another way, the built environment operates as a complex, inter-dependent system. Therefore, efforts to make health promotion standard (i.e. a shared value) in the built environment must be systems-based. Interventions targeting only one type of built environment decision-maker, resource, or function are unlikely to have a broad impact. The green building industry serves as an excellent example of how systems-based interventions focused on market transformation can bring about broad-scale change in awareness and practice in the built environment. This industry has successfully established environmental sustainability as a normative part of built environment practice, policy making, and investment. In addition to providing a template for creating systems-level change, green building rating systems such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) framework provide an opportunity to synergistically address growing public health and climate concerns. During this session, the audience will utilize the green building experience as a frame to consider what is needed to make health promotion ubiquitous within built environment practice.

Chronic disease management and prevention Environmental health sciences Other professions or practice related to public health Public health or related research Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health