Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Health, Well-being, and Sustainability [Paperback]

In a thorough, well-cited and comprehensive look at socio-economic-political factors and the ecosystem issues surrounding various facets of healthcare/wellness, the editors successfully present a wide cross-section of research. This collection of semi-autonomous chapters provide a compelling summary of research in these related fields while arguing for a more systematic and systems-thinking approach to the problems on healthcare/wellness. While potentially an excellent text book for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses, for a practitioner or a researcher in this field, the collection under-delivers in a couple of critical issues- the role of technology and the increasing digital dexterity of the average person - as a part of the solution is completely ignored. A less critical issue is that while the authors provide confidence (and hope) in these research areas, its applicability in retrofitting our existing infrastructures/systems seems quite weak - most ideas seem more appropriate if one were to build a system from scratch - or perhaps, that's a key point the editors are conveying. Nevertheless, this is a treasure trove for a policy wonk, students or researchers of a variety of disciplines, and anyone who is curious to understand how a range of disciplines are converging to attempt solutions for an issue that impacts everyone.

(Review based on an advance copy provided by publisher via NetGalley and adapted from my blog)

The book is organized in 5 parts. By providing a detailed landscape of the research in the various disciplines, the key issues in preventive care, evidence generation and public planning and the inter-relation of various disciplines is made very clear in the first part. The long list of citations in the very first chapter by itself makes this a worthy read. The second part provides a more detailed look at some of the community environment issues that impact health. Specific chapters focusing on the community design impact on physical activity, nutrition, water and air quality highlight not only the direct and measurable impact design has on health outcomes but also how difficult it is to modify behavior (either at the individual or community level). The need for systems-level thinking is evident in a variety of examples cited by the authors (e.g. - constructing a children park opposite to an apartment complex - just to have a multilane highway in between). Subsequent chapters focus more on issues more traditionally considered as workplace related issues - injuries, mental health. The third part addresses related to transportation and zoning inlarge cities and then explores similar issues at a home setting and then to specific work settings (including healthcare). As one can expect, these chapters start to overlap with some of the concepts from the first two parts and a degree of repetitiveness starts appearing in the collection from this point. While it reinforces the key points a reader who is not a student of these disciplines may find the book less engaging due to this repetition. The fourth part focuses on challenges of behavior modification and toolkits that can help in assessing the health impact of various settings. While the section provides a snapshot of the challenges, it also reflects the main issue plaguing service designers - the sustainability of behavior modification and how to make that as a core of any service offering The fifth part takes a look at the educational aspects to facilitate the emerging multi-disciplinary approach needed to solve healthcare issues.

All chapters are written in a very accessible manner (with the key points clearly outlined at the outset) but reflect a thorough analysis of existing literature that will easily muster acceptance in any peer-reviewed journal. This lucid abstraction of the existing literature in various topics reflected in almost all the chapters, makes this book a researcher's valuable asset.

As mentioned earlier, the editors ignore the impact of technology in alleviating some of the issues the authors raise. In fact there is no chapter that focuses on how the exploding "app" market and mobile technology have allowed average persons to collect and manage their own activity/nutrition data and the potential to change their behavior. While there is always a risk of self-selection bias in such studies, it was still critical to provide an evolutionary analysis of how IT has changed average person's ability to collect, manage and store data related to their health. While most of the solutions provide a prescriptive approach based on case studies, the relative difficulty in adapting existing systems is somewhat less clear in the book. This is a glaring hole in the book - which in no way diminishes the overall value of what the editors have been able to pull off in this complex topic. A student of the traditional disciplines in healthcare policy/economics or social policy researchers, or even curious readers looking for potential disruptive opportunities in healthcare will find this book a definitive starting point.

Good read to help planners comply with all of the healthy community and sustainability issues being advocated by "those who know better."

This book has been an excelent tool for my research project at the phD.
Easy to find the information I need.