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. 2018 Nov 29;15(12):2698.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph15122698.

Healthy Design and Urban Planning Strategies, Actions, and Policy to Achieve Salutogenic Cities

Stefano Capolongo  1 , Andrea Rebecchi  2 , Marco Dettori  3 , Letizia Appolloni  4 , Antonio Azara  5 , Maddalena Buffoli  6 , Lorenzo Capasso  7 , Alessandra Casuccio  8 , Gea Oliveri Conti  9 , Alessandro D'Amico  10 , Margherita Ferrante  11 , Umberto Moscato  12 , Ilaria Oberti  13 , Lorenzo Paglione  14 , Vincenzo Restivo  15 , Daniela D'Alessandro  16
Affiliations

Healthy Design and Urban Planning Strategies, Actions, and Policy to Achieve Salutogenic Cities

Stefano Capolongo et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Starting from a previous experience carried out by the working group "Building and Environmental Hygiene" of the Italian Society of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (SItI), the aim of the present work is to define new strategic goals for achieving a "Healthy and Salutogenic City", which will be useful to designers, local governments and public bodies, policy makers, and all professionals working at local health agencies. Ten key points have been formulated: 1. climate change and management of adverse weather events; 2. land consumption, sprawl, and shrinking cities; 3. tactical urbanism and urban resilience; 4. urban comfort, safety, and security perception; 5. strengths and weaknesses of urban green areas and infrastructures; 6. urban solid waste management; 7. housing emergencies in relation to socio-economic and environmental changes; 8. energy aspects and environmental planning at an urban scale; 9. socio-assistance and welfare network at an urban scale: importance of a rational and widespread system; and 10. new forms of living, conscious of coparticipation models and aware of sharing quality objectives. Design strategies, actions, and policies, identified to improve public health and wellbeing, underline that the connection between morphological and functional features of urban context and public health is crucial for contemporary cities and modern societies.

Keywords: health promotion; healthy urban planning strategies; non-communicable disease prevention; public health; salutogenic cities; urban health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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