Download The Built Environment and Human Health

Trudeau Conference on Public Policy 2007
A Climate of Reconciliation: Economy, Social Justice
and the Environment
Summary – Thematic Session Health
Presenters:
Richard Jackson, University of California, Berkeley
Colin L. Soskolne, University of Alberta
1. Dr. Richard Jackson, “The Built Environment and Human Health”
After being neglected for many decades, the interrelationship between the design of our
cities and buildings is once again being recognized as having a major impact on both
human health and the environment. As Dr. Jackson has written, “we now realize that how
we design the built environment may hold tremendous potential for addressing many of
the nation’s greatest current public health concerns, including obesity, cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, asthma, injury, depression, violence, and social inequities.”
Many American cities are characterized by huge freeways, traffic jams, sprawling singlefamily residences in distant suburbs lacking parks, playgrounds, community centres, and
practical public transit options. The focus of urban design on cities that favor private
vehicles has had broad health, environmental, and social repercussions. Americans (and
to a similar degree Canadians) suffer from soaring rates of obesity because of insufficient
physical exercise and diets including excessive sugars, fats, and calories. Obesity is
linked to many of the most prevalent chronic diseases in North America, including heart
disease, cancer, and diabetes. Even in children, obesity rates and diabetes are surging,
leading to predictions that by 2020, one in three American children will suffer from
diabetes. If these dire trends continue, then life expectancy in the United States will begin
to decline.
Public policies contributed to these problems and can contribute to the solutions. Zoning
laws that block high density and mixed use developments (live, work, play) need to be
changed. Laws governing contaminated sites need to be made flexible to encourage
redevelopment of brownfields after environmental remediation takes place. Policies need
to favor cycling, walking and public transit over private vehicles.
Inspiration can be found in some of the public health successes of the late 20th century,
such as the dramatic reduction in rates of smoking and the elimination of lead in gasoline.
Public policies were responsible for these changes, which have dramatically reduced rates
of lung cancer and neuro-developmental damage in children, respectively. Analysis of the
economic benefits of reduced lead levels in American children suggests values measured
in hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Another area of improvement lies in the field
of pesticides, where legislative changes prompted by scientific discoveries have reduced
the health risks posed by many agricultural pesticides.
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Smart public policies can protect both human health and the environment, reducing
deaths, illnesses, injuries, and ecological degradation and perhaps most importantly,
improving human wellbeing. Promising solutions include more accessible parks and
playgrounds, farmers markets, walking schoolbus programs, bicycle paths, and school
gardens. Europe is well ahead of North America in implementing these policies.
For additional information:
Frumkin H, Frank L, Jackson RJ. 2004. Urban Sprawl and Public Health: Designing, Planning, and
Building for Healthy Communities. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Jackson RJ. 2003. "The Impact of the Built Environment on Health: An Emerging Field", American Journal
of Public Health, 93(9):1382-1384.
2. Dr. Colin L. Soskolne, “Human Health on an Unhealthy Planet”
The scope and scale of global environmental change, which encompasses not only
climate change but other challenges like the decline in biodiversity and the attrition of
ecosystem services, poses dire threats to human health. The magnitude of the problem is
reflected by the increasing size of humanity’s ecological footprint, which now exceeds
the productive and assimilative capacities of the Earth.
The science of epidemiology traditionally focused on primary, secondary, and tertiary
prevention. In response to global change, epidemiology now incorporates primordial
prevention, i.e. policy interventions that occur to ensure that environmental hazards are
not created.
Maintaining ecological integrity depends on our ability to achieve population control,
reduce consumption of natural resources, and implement green technologies. Yet in many
cases the trends in these three areas are not encouraging (continued population growth,
increasing resource exploitation and pollution, inappropriate technologies). Human health
effects linked to global change include rising levels of skin cancer (linked to depletion of
the stratospheric ozone layer), the redistribution of malaria, and malnutrition associated
with climate change.
There is also a critical ethical element of global environmental change, in that
industrialized nations are responsible for the lion’s share of resource consumption and
pollution yet it is often the developing countries that bear a disproportionate share of the
adverse effects.
Key question: how long can human health be sustained while we continue to draw down
ecological capital and erode ecological integrity?
Hope and opportunity can be found in the Earth Charter and in new constitutional
provisions that recognize all people have the right to live in a healthy and ecologically
balanced environment. The Earth Charter is a soft law instrument (meaning it lacks legal
force), but offers a powerful prescription for reconciling human needs and the
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inescapable ecological constraints imposed by the planet. It is biocentric, prioritizes the
importance of ecological integrity, is rooted in precaution, and recognizes the rights of
both present and future generations.
The South African Bill of Rights, part of the constitutional reforms enacted in 1996,
explicitly recognizes that “everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to
their health or wellbeing.” Like the Earth Charter, South Africa’s Bill of Rights also
recognizes the importance of ecological integrity, prevention, and the rights of future
generations.
For additional information:
Colin L. Soskolne et al, eds. 2007. Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through
Global Governance. Lexington Books.
See also www.ecohealth.net and L. Gostin. 2007. Meeting Basic Survival Needs of the World’s Least
Healthy People: Toward a Framework Convention
Session chair and summary: David R. Boyd, University of British Colombia, Trudeau Scholar
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