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 Designing Healthy Communities:
Background and Resources
The design of our communities has a profound effect on
the public health.
The statistics on the state of Americans’ health are not
encouraging. According to a Surgeon General’s report, over
60 percent of the U.S. population is inactive or underactive, conditions
which have fueled the growing epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and
related disorders. And a growing body of evidence is pointing to
the critical role that community design plays in fostering—or
inhibiting—an active lifestyle. A few of the elements that
have been identified as creating healthy, “walkable”
communities include:
- Safe and accessible sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike paths;
- Transportation alternatives, with pedestrian access to buses
and transit systems;
- Safe, attractive, and convenient parks and recreation facilities;
- Shopping and services that can be accessed without automobiles.
All of these are aspects of community design on which landscape
architects have special expertise and that the profession is uniquely
qualified to address.
Active Living by Design, an initiative of the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation
ASLA has signed on as a member of Active Living by Design,
an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
(RWJF), the largest philanthropic foundation devoted exclusively
to health and health care in the United States. The mission of Active
Living by Design [www.activelivingbydesign.com]
is: “to provide leadership in promoting environments that
offer choices for Active Living, a lifestyle that easily integrates
physical activity into daily routines.“ Additional research
documenting the impact of community design on healthy lifestyles
is underway and planned, as is development of best practices and
case studies on the design of walkable communities.
On May 7, 2003, Jamie Bussell, MPH, Program Associate, Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation, addressed the ASLA Board of Trustees and Chapter
Presidents’ Council. Bussell’s talk covered the growing
problems related to Americans’ sedentary lifestyles and challenged
ASLA and its members to promote healthy community design. Download
Bussell’s presentation.
Designing and Building Healthy Places, an initiative of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
has recognized several significant health issues related to land
use, including physical activity, respiratory health and air pollution,
children’s health and the built environment, and accessibility.
The CDC website, Healthy Places [http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces],
outlines and discusses the issues and provides links and other resources.
A CDC Livability Listserv [http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/contact.htm]
has been established to foster information exchange and dialogue
on the issue of health and community design.
“We must be alert to the health benefits,
including less stress, lower blood pressure, and overall improved
physical and mental health, that can result when people live
and work in accessible, safe, well-designed, thoughtful structures
and landscapes.”
Dr. Richard Jackson, M.D., M.P.H. |
Dr. Richard Jackson, MD, MPH, Director, National Center
for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, has identified the built environment as a critically
important and under-appreciated environmental health issue. View
Dr. Jackson’s paper “What Olmsted Knew.”
Jackson presented a keynote address at the 2003 ASLA Annual Meeting
in New Orleans.
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Designing
Healthy Communities: Background and Resources
