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city growth, sustainability, vitality and vulnerability |
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city growth, sustainability, vitality and vulnerability |
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Billie Giles-Corti (UWA) & Kimberley Van Niel (UWA) In the last decade there has been growing interest in the impact of the built environment on health and recognition that the design of cities has a profound impact of its residents. This has been fuelled by global trends in preventable chronic disease and their risk factors including increasing levels of physical inactivity; a global epidemic of obesity in adult and children; rising levels of late onset diabetes (i.e., Diabetes II), and rapid increases in stress, depression and other preventable mental illnesses. These trends are not due to genetics, but to a rapidly changing environment. Well designed urban environments have the potential to facilitate healthy lifestyles and social interactions by actively (e.g., access to recreational facilities) and passively (e.g., providing access to destinations) encouraging residents to be active: socially and mentally. On the other hand, poorly designed low density car dependent cities are bad for health and the environment, increasing driving at the expense of walking, cycling and public transport use. The City Health Stream will consider the impact of the overall design of cities on the physical and mental health of its citizens and factors that contribute to creating unhealthy cities and how these barriers might be best overcome to enable cities to become healthier places in physiological, social, economic and environmental terms. Topics that will be considered in this stream include:
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