Built Environments

The built environment includes the human-made, physical characteristics that provide the setting for human activities – where people live, work, learn and play. Healthy built environments are the product of good planning practices. Whether rural, urban, or suburban communities, healthy built environments are places that are designed to support good health for all.

The Built Environment: Understanding how physical environments influence the health and well-being of First Nations peoples living on-reserve

This publication from the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH) focuses on five distinct areas of built environments related to health: housing; water and wastewater management; food security; active living; and transportation. With a specific focus on First Nations reserves, this paper fills an important gap in knowledge and research which has largely ignored the unique needs of First Nations reserves. 

For more Indigenous health resources, visit the NCCIH website.

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Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit

Download the 2018 Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit now available! Download it at the BC Centre for Disease Control's website.

How can local governments link planning principles to health outcomes?

Mobilizing Environmental Data to Build Healthier Cities for All

Sep 29 2021 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Addressing environmental inequities, such as how walkable your community is, can provide health, environmental and economic co-benefits. On September 29, join the NCCEH-CCNSE and CANUE for a webinar on identifying and operationalizing insights on inequities in the built environment.

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Planning and Designing Healthy Communities

Apr 23 2021 - 9:00am to Apr 25 2021 - 4:45pm

This two-day intensive workshop will introduce you to key principles and strategies for the planning and designing of healthy communities. The course is intended to educate and inspire, to develop an understanding of the public health implications of policy and design decisions, and to apply a health lens to a broad spectrum of policy and design issues and initiatives.

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HUBBUB 14: The Digital Edition

Apr 20 2020 - 9:00am to Apr 25 2020 - 11:45am

Join HUBBUB 14 The Digital Edition to see projects from the Spring 2020 term co-created by City staff, students, faculty and community, all aiming to make Vancouver more sustainable, liveable and joyful. Click here to learn more about HUBBUB 14 The Digital Edition.  

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CITY101: Planning for Non-Planners

Mar 2 2020 - 10:15am to Mar 16 2020 - 10:15am

This SFU course offers a special focus on planning and development issues in the Canadian and Metro Vancouver context, and the planners’ role in building cities. Explore the interrelationships between the physical, environmental, economic, social, and built considerations in planning at the site, neighbourhood, city, and regional scales.

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Mental Health and Well-being: Considerations for the Built Environment

This report by BC Children’s Hospital and the BC Centre for Disease Control explains how we can build neighborhood spaces that promote mental health and well-being while mitigating unintentional negative impacts.

Mental Health and Well-being: Considerations for the Built Environment
Detail from the cover of the report.

BCCDC's new "Mental Health and Well-being: Considerations for the Built Environment" report released

A new report by BC Children’s Hospital and the BC Centre for Disease Control helps planners and health professionals create spaces for thriving and resilient communities.

 

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A sketch of the proposed downtown plaza

Proposed Kamloops plaza encourages downtown walkability

Downtown Kamloops may soon need a new map. Following a very successful pilot of the 4th Avenue Pedestrian Plaza last summer, the city published the results of their comprehensive community engagement and outreach process, which gathered community feedback about the project. Funded in part by a PlanH Creating Healthy Places grant, the engagement process found that respondents are overwhelmingly in favour of a permanent plaza.

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Ten Healthy Built Environment Tools for Local Governments

This guide is designed to support local governments, including Indigenous communities, with assessing features of their community’s built environment. Ten validated healthy built environment assessment tools have been compiled and are presented in this guide. These assessment tools, when paired with community engagement efforts and health data, will support local governments in identifying the strengths and gaps in their community’s built environment and further understand how those gaps might negatively impact health.

Download the resource here.

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