The document discusses the relationship between the built environment and public health. It notes that features like urban planning, transportation, access to healthy food and housing all impact health outcomes. Both public health and urban planning have evolved in their thinking to recognize this relationship. There are now opportunities for public health and planning professionals to work together to promote health through the built environment. The document proposes that PHAC-Atlantic could facilitate knowledge sharing between local and federal groups to help build capacity around healthy community design.

1. PHAC‐Atlantic Built Environment Think Tank 2012 ‐ Backgrounder
January 13, 2012
Why focus on the built environment?
The places in which we live, commute, work and play influence our overall health. At a practical level,
the built environment can be a barrier or an enabler of good health. Active forms of transportation,
mental fitness, and healthy eating are as much a matter of community design as personal choice. For
example, food environments that discourage healthy eating (e.g. food deserts) are partly the result of
poor planning decisions.
People‐friendly streetscapes are also important protective factors against stress and isolation. A
community that makes it easy for people to safely walk, cycle, and meet in public spaces, buffered
from noise and extreme cold or heat, is a community most people would want to live and age in.
A community that places a strong emphasis on clean, safe, affordable housing is also likely to improve
health equity. We know there is a direct relationship between housing and the ability to make healthy
lifestyle choices.
Finally, town, rural and urban planning practices can also promote good health outcomes by instilling
in citizens a sense of belonging and pride of place, while reinforcing in decision makers the importance
of accountability and inclusion. For these reasons, the built environment has the potential to be a
population health equalizer.
What’s changed?
Over the past few decades, urban planning has moved beyond thinking primarily about ‘mains and
drains’ and public health has moved beyond thinking primarily about ‘bugs and drugs’. These
changes highlight common interest about the impact of built environments on health, and the role
good urban design policies play in creating positive health outcomes at the population level.1
When air pollution, waste disposal and drinking water posed serious and immediate health risks at the
end of the nineteenth century, public health was at the forefront of planning and design decisions. The
push to create public parks that would be protected in perpetuity, segregate sewer and potable water
systems, and implement safer road and building designs can be retraced to these early public health
crises when towns and cities were rapidly growing.
Today, we are faced with new and more complex public health risks. However planning and design
decisions that affect air and water quality, access to fresh foods, public transit, and local economies are
as relevant as ever. Each of these public health facilitators is tied to municipal planning and the
physical/built environment.
1
Planning By Design: A Healthy Communities Handbook. Ministry of Municipal Affairs in partnership with Ontario Professional Planners
Institute. Province of Ontario. 2009.
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2. PHAC‐Atlantic Built Environment Think Tank 2012 ‐ Backgrounder
January 13, 2012
What is the opportunity?
The scope of public health challenges today provides a new perspective on the role of the
physical/built environment and its potential to transform the health of Canadians. Planning and public
health professionals once again see the need to advance broad public health objectives through action
on the built environment. Below are five recent examples.
 In 2010, the Healthy Living Issue Group of the Pan‐Canadian Public Health Network published the
report: Bringing Health to the Planning Table: A Profile of Promising Practices in Canada and
Abroad.2 The report profiles 13 Canadian communities that aligned planning decisions with public
health objectives. This product was prepared in collaboration with Healthy Living Unit staff, Healthy
Communities Division, and Strategic Initiatives and Innovations Directorate, PHAC.
 In early 2011, the Healthy Living Unit partnered with the BC Provincial Health Services Authority to
pilot two “Health 201” workshops for urban planners and local health practitioners on healthy built
environments, using a module developed by the BC PHSA.3
 In May 2011, the Nova Scotia Planning Directors Association chose “Planning Healthy Communities”
as the theme for its annual conference. This event attracted more than 200 participants from
municipalities across the region.
 In July 2011, the Atlantic Planners Institute co‐sponsored the annual Canadian Institute of Planners’
conference in St. John’s, NL. The agenda provided a rich overview of the scope of initiatives
underway to design health‐promoting environments.
 In November 2011, the Public Health Association of NL co‐sponsored a workshop on bringing health
to the planning table.
What should PHAC‐Atlantic’s role be?
In order to answer this question, a small group (maximum 12 individuals) of content experts and
practitioners in planning and public health will be invited to a one‐day meeting to be held in Halifax,
Nova Scotia.
One of the roles the Agency plays is to facilitate knowledge exchange for the purpose of building public
health capacity. This project would create a venue to further promising practice in Atlantic region.
The Agency may also act as a knowledge broker between actors at the local level and other federal
departments whose mandate may directly impact on the built and/or physical environment at the local
level, such as: Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Transport Canada, Corrections Canada
and Parks Canada, to name a few.
2
http://www.phac‐aspc.gc.ca/publicat/2009/be‐eb/index‐eng.php
3
http://www.phsa.ca/HealthProfessionals/Population‐Public‐Health/Healthy‐Built‐Environment/default.htm
2