How healthy is the built environment? Challenges and paradigms for measuring urban health

Abstract

Health evidence and health data are not widely used to shape healthier cities through urban planning. Indeed research has not produced an extensive standardised assessment able to engage the transdisciplinary nature of the relationship between population health and urban settings. This paper aims to introduce and review how the built environment and its relation to population health are assessed in the literature, identifying methodological shortcomings and research potential to be addressed jointly. First, the article outlines the gap between the plural nature of urban health and sectorial assessments as a lack in blending multiple bio-medical fields to guide planning, when on the other hand, extensive urban health studies often lack appropriate measures. It is preferable to investigate the built environment combined with population health investigation outlined in space and time. Second, to integrate health measurements, considerations of the spatio-temporal context to embed health in the built environment study are presented. Indeed, the searches for prospective approaches at adequate smaller scales deepen the residence history and heterogeneity in the spatial extension of individual space behaviour and urban features. The authors intend to promote a transdisciplinary discussion upon a broad diagnosis of the healthiness of the built environment to better inform decision-makers.

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