tailieunhanh - THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND CHILDREN’S HEALTH

The built environment embraces a wide range of concepts, from the design and integrity of housing, to land-use and urban planning. A high quality environment is essential for children to achieve optimal health and development. Building and land-use policies, including the quality and design of a child’s physical environment, can cause or prevent illness, disability and injury, and degrade or preserve natural resources. Though many common pediatric conditions such as obesity, asthma, and lead poisoning as well as injuries, are associated with risk factors within a child’s built environment this issue has received little attention from. | - 1 - THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND CHILDREN S HEALTH Susan Kay Cummins MD MPH FAAP Senior Health Policy Advisor National Center for Environmental Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Hubert H. Humphrey Building Room 317 B 200 Independence Avenue SW Washington DC 20201 202-358-2466 voice 202-205-8313 fax shc7@ e-mail and Richard Joseph Jackson MD MPH Director National Center for Environmental Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 4770 Buford Highway Mailstop F 29 Atlanta GA 30341 770-488-7000 voice 770-488-7015 fax 7 rxj4@ e-mail Corresponding Author Susan Kay Cummins MD MPH FAAP - 2 - Synopsis for Table of Contents The built environment embraces a wide range of concepts from the design and integrity of housing to land-use and urban planning. A high quality environment is essential for children to achieve optimal health and development. Building and land-use policies including the quality and design of a child s physical environment can cause or prevent illness disability and injury and degrade or preserve natural resources. Though many common pediatric conditions such as obesity asthma and lead poisoning as well as injuries are associated with risk factors within a child s built environment this issue has received little attention from researchers or policymakers. This new field is ripe for etiologic and prevention research and we need pediatric advocates to speak out for children s needs within this arena. - 3 - The quality and design of a child s physical environment can cause or prevent illness disability and injury therefore a high-quality environment is essential for children to achieve optimal health and development. While pediatricians are accustomed to thinking about health hazards from toxic exposures much less attention has been given to the potential for adverse effects from built environments such as poor-quality housing and haphazard land-use transportation and community planning. In fact children spend little time .