Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

Abstract

What do social capital, physical activity, injuries and air quality have in common? These, and other health determinants, are all strongly influenced by the way we design and build the environments we live and work in. Environmental improvements, stimulated by the public health movement, reduced the burden of infectious diseases at the end of the nineteenth century. If you thought the environment was no longer an important cause of poor health, this book will surely make you reconsider. But the health issues go beyond those that we now define as being within the domain of health protection; the built environment is also important for health improvement.