© 2003 American Public Health Association
The authors are with the Georgetown University Law Center. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Wendy Collins Perdue, 600 New Jersey Ave, Washington, DC, 20001 (e-mail: perdue{at}law.georgetown.edu).
The built environment significantly affects the publics health. This was most obvious when infectious disease was the primary public health threat during the industrial revolution; unsanitary conditions and overcrowded urban areas facilitated the spread of infection. However, even today in the age of chronic diseases there remains an important connection between population health and the built environment. Physical spaces can expose people to toxins or pollutants and influence lifestyles that contribute to diabetes, coronary vascular disease, and asthma. Public health advocates can help shape the design of cities and suburbs in ways that improve public health, but to do so effectively they need to understand the legal framework. This article reviews the connection between public health and the built environment and then describes the legal pathways for improving the design of our built environment.
DURING THE 19TH CENTURY, the connection between public health and the built environment became increasingly apparent as hundreds of thousands of workers crowded into unsanitary, industrial cities with a resulting increase in disease and epidemics and a decrease in life expectancy.1 In this era, dramatic improvements in public health in industrialized nations were made possible by changes in the built environment. The installation of comprehensive sewer systems, improvements in building designs to ensure that residents had light and fresh air, and the movement of residential areas away from noxious industrial facilities all brought significant improvements in health.1 In many respects, sanitary engineers were the first urban planners in America.2 Industrialization not only highlighted the connection between the built environment and public health, but it also established the dominant view that population concentration and proximity between businesses and residences were unhealthy. This view was reflected in the esthetics of the City Beautiful movement3,4 as well as in the social agenda of many in the early 20th-century housing-reform movement.4 It is also reflected in the zoning ordinances that took hold in the 1920s. These ordinances separated neighborhoods for residential, business, and industrial uses and specified building heights, setbacks, and the density of use.4 They were consistently justified because population deconcentration and separation of uses improved "public health, safety, morals, [and] general welfare."5 By the mid-20th century, the connection between public health and the built environment seemed to diminish. Infectious disease had been brought under control, and as a result the layout and planning of cities came to be viewed as a matter of esthetics or economics, but not health. Public health officials concentrated on human behaviors such as smoking and to the extent they considered the built environment, the focus was on more discrete issues such as lead paint rather than larger-scale planning issues. Today the primary public health problems are chronic diseases rather than infectious diseases, and half of Americans live in suburban rather than urban or rural settings.6 These changes have not eliminated the connection between public health and the built environment but suggest a sharply different focus than that of a hundred years ago. Indeed, deconcentration of populations and the separation between residential and business areas, measures urged a hundred years ago to improve health, may contribute to chronic health problems. The spread-out design of suburbs increases reliance on the automobile. This in turn contributes to air pollution, with its detrimental effects including chronic respiratory ailments, and to a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. In contrast to the situation in the cities of the mid-19th century, today nearly all aspects of the built environment are shaped by law and governmental decisions. What can be built in what location is regulated by a complex set of local, state, and federal laws. A second significant change is that unlike the situation in the 19th and early 20th centuries, todays public health advocates have been largely absent from discussions about major planning or land-use decisions involving the built environment. Many cities and counties around the country have large planning departments or other bureaucracies that regulate land use and buildings. These frequently include urban planners, architects, lawyers, economists, transportation engineers, environmental scientists, and demographers. They rarely include public health officials. This may reflect a broader phenomenon of the increasing isolation of public health officials within government.7 Nonetheless, public health officials can add an important voice to the decisions that shape the built environment. We later explain the relation between physical space and healthy populations, examine the legal tools to improve the built environment, and offer guidelines to help public health professionals be effective advocates in political decisionmaking.
The built environment influences the publics health, particularly in relation to chronic diseases. There is good evidence to indicate that the burden of chronic disease in the population can be reduced through an active lifestyle, proper nutrition, and reduced exposure to toxic conditions.8 However, many urban and suburban environments are not well designed to facilitate healthy behaviors or create the conditions for health. Health officials can provide information about healthy living, but if people live in poorly designed physical environments, their health will suffer. To understand the effect of the built environment on health, it is necessary to examine the major health threats facing Americans. The leading causes of death in the United States today are heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular diseases (including stroke), chronic lower respiratory diseases (such as asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema), and unintentional injuries.9 A sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition contribute to obesity, a risk factor for some of the leading causes of mortality, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and some cancers.1012 In fact, more stroke deaths in the United States are caused by obesity and hypertension than any other behavioral risks.11 Although the American public is largely aware of the health risks associated with obesity, the percentages of overweight or obese (overweight is defined as having a body mass index greater than or equal to 25, whereas obese is defined as a body mass index of greater than or equal to 30)9 American adults and children are growing. In 19992000, 64.5% of Americans older than 20 years were overweight, and 30.5% were obese.9 These figures are up about 8% from 19881994 figures. About 15% of children aged 6 to 19 years are overweight, a 4% increase from 19881994 data.9 Toxic conditions also contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, especially chronic respiratory diseases and cancer. Asthma, a chronic respiratory disease, can be triggered by environmental factors such as pollen and grass seeds and atmospheric pollutants, both indoor and outdoor.13 Indoor pollutants are believed to be a significant cause of asthma in the inner city. It has been shown that cockroach antigens, found in the insects feces, eggs, saliva, and shed cuticles, can trigger asthma.14 Outdoor pollutants, such as ground-level ozone and respirable particulate matter, can also increase the incidence of asthma.15 Automobiles and factories produce significant amounts of ground-level ozone, respirable particulates, and other pollutants. When traffic was reduced in Atlanta for the Olympic Games, peak ozone concentrations decreased 27.9% and the number of asthma emergency medical events simultaneously fell by 41.6%.16 Although the links between physical activity, proper nutrition, a clean environment, and health are well known, the current built environment does not promote healthy lifestyles. Many urban environments lack safe open spaces that encourage exercise and easily accessible nutritious food and promote the use of alcohol and tobacco products through outdoor advertising. A spread-out suburban design facilitates reliance on automobiles, increasing pollution and decreasing the time spent walking from place to place. The environment is integral to encouraging physical activity.17 Yet urban areas frequently lack adequate safe playgrounds and green spaces. The "open space" that exists may be vacant lots covered with garbage and debris, which attracts vermin and can harbor criminal activities.18 Children may choose to play in the streets rather than in the broken glass, garbage, and used needles of the vacant lots.18 This lack of safe places discourages a childs play and exercise. In addition, neighborhoods without green space lack a sense of community and feature increased acts of violence when compared with those that surround green space.16 Land-use patterns also affect the health of urban communities. Urban neighborhoods may be home to a regions most toxic sites. One area of the South Bronx section of New York City had the largest wastewater sludge pelletization plant in the Northeast (it was forced to close) and the regions largest medical waste incinerator.19 Not coincidentally, the area has a childhood asthma rate 1000% higher than that of the rest of New York State.19 Urban environments may be lacking in other resources as well. Convenience stores and establishments that serve fast food may vastly outnumber grocery stores where people can purchase nutritious food. In addition, hospitals and medical care centers may close in urban places where constituents lack a strong political voice. The remaining medical providers are without sufficient resources.20 The urban environment may also encourage risky behaviors such as smoking and drinking. Researchers have noted that tobacco and alcohol marketers have targeted urban communities.21 The design of suburban communities also affects the publics health. Large distances between work and home mean more space taken up by roads and an increased reliance on automobiles. This has multiple health effects. First, pollutants from automobiles increase as miles traveled increases. Increased pollution increases deaths from respiratory22 and cardiopulmonary illnesses.23 Second, as time spent in traffic increases, leisure time available for health-promoting activities may decrease. This leads to reduced time in which to exercise and engage in other health-promoting activities. Third, increasing hours on the road increase the opportunity for traffic accidents and deaths due to unintentional injuries. Although suburban dwellers have higher rates of leisure exercise and suburban women have lower obesity rates than their urban and rural counterparts, better suburban design could increase opportunities for exercise.24 Shopping areas are designed to be driven to, and walking from errand to errand is difficult. The spread-out nature of the suburb increases reliance on automobiles and may not be ideal for increasing opportunities for exercise. The built environment affects health in a number of ways. It is not sufficient to educate people regarding healthy lifestyles; the built environment must promote, or at least allow for, engaging in healthy behaviors. Law can be used as a tool to accomplish this goal.25
The law can be a potent tool in creating a built environment that is conducive to public health. Legislatures design broad policies and parameters, including processes for making decisions that affect the built environment. The decisions of legislatures are carried out and enforced by more specialized bodies such as planning boards, zoning boards, and administrative agencies. Public health practitioners can best influence decisions by intervening early in the process, when broad policies are being made about population density, land-use configurations, transportation, and other important issues. There are 5 main legal avenues for affecting the built environment: environmental regulation to reduce toxic emissions; zoning ordinances that designate an area for a specific use and related developmental requirements; building and housing codes that set standards for structures; taxing to encourage or discourage activities or behaviors; and spending to provide resources for projects that enhance the built environment. The exact mechanisms vary by state and locality, but the general principles are similar.
Environmental Regulation
Zoning and Related Developmental Requirements
Building and Housing Codes
Taxing Power
Spending Power
Summary
With the decline in focus on sanitation and infectious disease, public health advocates have been relatively invisible in the political process that shapes the built environment. Instead, the leading voices have been those of environmentalists, the business community, land owners and developers, architects and urban planners, and civic activists seeking to protect established neighborhoods. Public health expertise is critical to the process. The following guidelines will help public health advocates become a constructive and effective voice:
Public health can be an influential voice in shaping the built environment. If advocates demonstrate competence in the legal process and use their expertise effectively, physical spaces can be designed to promote healthy populations.
We thank Daniel M. Fox, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, for encouraging a legal examination of the built environment, and Gabriel Baron Eber, JD/MPH candidate at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities and Elizabeth Geddes, JD candidate at Georgetown University Law Center, for providing helpful assistance.
Contributors W. C. Perdue provided research on the history and legal tools of land-use planning. L. A. Stone provided research on public health and the built environment. L. O. Gostin assisted in synthesizing the analysis. All authors helped in conceptualizing ideas and were involved in all phases of drafting and editing the article. Accepted for publication April 25, 2003.
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