The Health Equity Imperative and the Role of the Built Environment

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in cities around the world has further illuminated a long, global history of public health outcomes being shaped by the design of our built environment—all buildings, spaces, and systems that are created, modified, or used by humans. While health outcomes are shaped by many factors—including genetics, personal behaviour, and access to health care—research shows that the built environment has played a role in rising rates of chronic disease, and land-use professionals, including urban planners, designers, and developers, have a responsibility to design spaces and places that equitably promote positive health outcomes. The fields of public health and urban planning emerged in tandem to address the infectious diseases prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and must continue partnering to reverse the trends of chronic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. As health outcomes are not equitably distributed across all demographics, with communities of colour and low-income communities disproportionately impacted with higher rates of chronic disease and higher rates of COVID-19-related deaths, seeking to create healthy buildings and cities that are accessible to all people needs to be a priority within the land-use industry.