Re-engineering the Built Environment: Progress in Schools, Worksites, Neighborhoods, and Communities
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2023
Abstract
Globally, environmental changes have fueled increasingly sedentary lifestyles and a transition to unhealthy diets, which have driven rising levels of obesity. Researchers have spent the past several decades identifying “obesogenic” components of our schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. More recently, interventions have sought to modify these environments to provide opportunities, support, and cues to help people eat healthier foods and be more active. Such approaches complement individual-level interventions yet reach a larger population and are often more permanent. Across schools, worksites, neighborhoods, and communities, there is growing evidence that supports the need to re-engineer the built environment to reduce obesity and related health inequities. Natural experiments provide a rigorous approach that overcomes the difficulty in conducting randomized controlled trials of environmental interventions, and further advances in our understanding of how best to re-engineer our built environments will likely result from this research. Evidence for environmental interventions involves improvements in more proximate outcomes, like dietary behaviors, physical activity, and sedentary behavior. Studies can be further enhanced by using common measures, behavioral science frameworks, and measuring domain-specific behavioral outcomes.
Recommended Citation
Broyles, S., & Kepper, M. (2023). Re-engineering the Built Environment: Progress in Schools, Worksites, Neighborhoods, and Communities. Retrieved from https://repository.lsu.edu/pop_public_health_pubs/112