Introduction to connections between planning and public health

1. PSUS 6230 UP:
SUSTAINABLE COMM DESIGN
STUDIO: PLANNING FOR HEALTH
POLICY INTHE 21ST CENTURY
Introduction to Health and the Built Environment
September 3,2015

2. Overview
•Introductions and Review of the Syllabus
•Questions
•Public Health and Planning’s Joint
Foundation
•Emergence of the two disciplines
•Policy and Public Health Assessments

3. Public Health and Planning
Foundations

4. Connections Made Between
Disease and Sanitation

5. The Divergence of the Disciplines
By 1894, public health began to focus more on the
medical than the physical environment
•Widespread use of medication and the new
“antibiotics”
•Improved living conditions
•Physical environment increasingly less important
As a result of the success of the sanitation
movement in the latter half of the 19th century:
•Building standards
•Indoor plumbing
•New York Tenement Housing Act of 1901: daylight,
natural ventilation, sanitation and security

6. Public Health’s Emerging Focus:
1950-2005
•Deaths from cancer, heart disease, stroke,
diabetes, injuries
•Causes thought to be primarily biologic, not as
much environmental/ behavioral
•Hospitals, medical specialists, intensive care
units, biomedical research, pharmaceuticals

7. Public Health and Public Planning
Public
Health
Public Planning
Where we live not affect our health
outcomes

9. What are the domains
where these effects
occur?

10. Land Use Patterns
Suburban Orlando Lehigh Acres

11. Transportation
• Air pollution: American Lung
Association estimates annual
health cost due to air pollution
from motor vehicles is $4.5 to
$93 billion
• Sedentary lifestyle: Sitting in
traffic decreases mental well-
being and increases weight gain
• Walking and biking:
Pedestrian injury is the third
leading cause of death for
children 15 and younger

12. Harvard Study on Transportation
and Health
•Studied 83 largest urban
areas
•At least 2,200 premature
deaths in 2010
•Public health cost
estimated at $17.8 Billion
associated with:
• Morbidity
• Health care
• Insurance
• Accidents
www.transportationconstructioncoalition.org

13. What if 1,950 UNCC
Students, Faculty, &
Staff Rode the BLE?
$$ Save $450 in Parking/Year and
$10/Day in Driving Costs
Could Save Another $9,120/Year
in Car Ownership Expenses
The University Could Save
$8.56 M in Constructing
a New Parking Deck
What About Health
Care and Quality of Life
Savings?
What if 24,500 Extra
People Rode the BLE to
Work?
$$ CATS Would Generate an
Additional $27 M in Revenue
Each Year
75 Million Vehicle Miles Would
be Avoided Saving:
• $96,800 in Air Quality
• $3.8 M in Traffic Congestion
• $27 M in Collision Reductions
• $11.3 M in Road Maintenance
More People Would be
Physically Active Reducing the
Health Care Cost of Physical
Inactivity by $1,400 per Person
Air Quality Would Improve
Reducing the Health Care Cost
of Asthma by $3,300 per Person
Each Year of Life Saved
through Healthier Behavior,
Avoided Crashes, and Higher
Education equals $130,000
P
Savings Due to the Blue Line Extension
Total Estimated Benefits: $1.2 Billion/Year

14. Food Systems
• Food is a regional issue: Your food should
come from the closest place possible
geographically
• Food insecurity: community gardens, urban
agriculture
• What’s in our food?

15. Access to Parks and Open Space
Parks and other aspects of the built environment
are often not viewed as part of the medical or
health care system. The Commission to Build a
Healthier America states that the most important
types of preventative care are “outside of the
traditional medical care setting, in the places where
we live, learn, work, play, and worship”
(Williams, McClellan, & Rivlin, 2010 )

17. In 2010, less than ½ of school-aged
children had parks, community centers
and sidewalks in their neighborhoods
Rate of 9 recreational facilities per
100,000 population
31% of population live within half a mile
of a park http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/downloads/PA_State_Indicator_Report_2010.pdf
Parks and Open Space

18. Assignment: Literature
review of one of the topics
listed. The assignment is due
by 5:30 next Thursday
evening via Blackboard to
Professor Whitehead