Abstract
This chapter provides an integrated introduction to the history and current practice of two linked fields: public health and planning. The fields of public health and planning have common historical roots, and there is a significant resurgence recognizing this commonality in both theory and practice. This chapter describes the methods, study designs, activities, and results of both public health and planning in the USA; highlights current persistent health and planning issues; and identifies emerging issues for future research and analysis. The chapter includes a case study on obesity and the built environment, highlighting links between urban planning and health. The chapter pinpoints five primary issues in research and analysis requiring greater attention in order to smooth the road for effective interdisciplinary work on health impact assessments (HIAs). It then concludes by identifying key emerging directions for community planning and public health, for which HIA has a direct role.
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- 1.
Ecosocial epidemiology was first coined by Nancy Krieger in 1994 and “fully embraces a social production of disease perspective while aiming to bring in a comparably rich biological and ecological analysis” (Krieger 2001).
- 2.
The nonspecific immunization phase in public health (1980–present) reflects on causes of death due to suicide and crime, which lie outside the realms of traditional disease causation (Duhl and Sanchez 1999).
- 3.
Ecological systems theory, a contextual approach to studying human development, was developed by UrieBronfenbrenner in the 1970s. He placed the individual within four hierarchical nested systems—the microsystem (e.g., the home or classroom of a child); the mesosystem (two interacting microsystems, e.g., the effect of the home on the classroom); the exosystem (external environments which indirectly influence development, e.g., the mother’s place of work); and the macro system (the larger socioeconomic cultural context). By applying socio-ecological systems concepts to health, we can deduce that health can be a state produced by the constant interaction and mutual influences between the individual as agent and his or her surrounding environments.
- 4.
Arah (2009) discusses the inaccuracies of making deductions between individual health and population health within the biomedical model of epidemiology. Biomedical models do not explain the dynamic relationships between the cumulative health effects of an individual embedded in an intricate social and environmental web, and the larger health of the population. The socio-ecological model offers an alternative by attempting to understand those connections.
- 5.
A promising policy initiative. A federal interagency partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Department of Transportation (DOT), it is guided by six livability principles: provide more transportation choices, promote equitable, affordable housing, enhance economic competitiveness, support existing communities, coordinate and leverage investment, and value communities and neighborhoods (EPA-HUD-DOT 2010).
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Ross, C., Orenstein, M., Botchwey, N. (2014). Public Health and Community Planning 101. In: Health Impact Assessment in the United States. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7303-9_2
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