Built Environment and Health

The built environment is typically defined to include relatively stable aspects of the humanmade or modified environment, such as buildings, transportation systems, architectural and urban design features, landscape elements, and green spaces. The use of the term built environment is bounded by spatial and temporal scales. It generally does not include large, enduring features such as bodies of water or climate patterns. Yet the built environment is influenced by such features of the surrounding macro-environment. At the other end of the spectrum, the built environment generally excludes small, transient features such as litter or particulate air pollution, even though the built environment itself may be one factor in determining recurrent patterns in the microenvironment.

The built environment has gained attention in behavioral research as discussed below, ...