This project is now inactive. Publications developed under this project are archived here.

Built Environment includes the ensemble of buildings, transportation systems, parks, schools, food markets, etc., that can have a positive or negative effect on health (chronic illnesses, mental health, respiratory illnesses, sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, among others) insofar as it is tied to many of the social determinants of health (air quality, noise exposure, modes and speed of travel, injecting drugs in public, access to healthy food, etc.).

Public policies that inform the built environment and its determinants are many and diverse: housing policies, traffic policies, urban or regional planning policies and so on.

Within this project, our work mainly focused on interventions targeting the configuration of streets and public roadway
networks. This included documentation on:

  • Innovative municipal norms that can promote safe active transportation;

  • The effects of traffic calming approaches and interventions on health.

We have also conducted work on various issues linked to the built environment, on the actors involved, and on the associated obstacles and levers.

 

Municipal Norms

Innovative Municipal Norms Conducive to Safe Active Transportation: Introduction to a Series of Briefing Notes

Raised Crosswalks and Continuous Sidewalks: “Pedestrian Priority”

Two-way Cycling on Local One-way Streets

Pedestrian Priority Streets

Traffic Lane Width of 3.0 m in Urban Environments

A 30-km/h Speed Limit on Local Streets

Traffic-calming

Traffic Calming: An Equivocal Concept

Traffic Calming: Political Dimensions

Through Road/Main Street Interventions: Towards a More Balanced Coexistence Between Road Traffic and Life in Small Municipalities

Roundabouts for Public Health

Urban Traffic Calming and Health Inequalities: Effects and Implications for Practice

Urban Traffic Calming and Active Transportation: Effects and Implications for Practice

Urban Traffic Calming and Environmental Noise: Effects and Implications for Practice

Urban Traffic Calming and Air Quality: Effects and Implications for Practice

Urban Traffic Calming and Road Safety: Effects and Implications for Practice

Urban Traffic Calming and Health: A Literature Review

Glossary of Traffic-calming Measures

Urban Traffic Calming: Summary Tables of Evaluative Studies

Issues, actors, obstacles and levers 

Aging and Safe Active Transportation: Issues and Courses of Action for Public Roadway Development

Health Authorities and the Built Environment: Actions to Influence Public Policies

Transportation Policies and Health Inequalities

Built Environment – Public Policy, Actors, Barriers, and Levers

Public Health Authorities, Public Policies and the Built Environment: Reference Framework

Public Health in the Era of Peak Oil