The Built Environment and Public Health

This text combines an examination of how the physical environment affects our health with a description of how public health and urban planning can work together to create environments that improve human health and well-being.

THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH 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 influencesHow urban planning and public health intersectHow infrastructure improvements can address chronic diseases and conditionsMeeting the challenges of natural disastersPolicies to promote walking and mass transitApproaches to assess and improve air quality and our water supplyPolicies that improve food security and change how Americans get their foodHow the built environment can address needs of vulnerable populationsEvidence-based design practices for hospitals and health care facilitiesMental health, stressors, and health care environmentsTheories and programs to improve social capital of low-income communitiesHow 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. Companion Web site: www.josseybass.com/go/lopez