Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: We spend over 90% of our lives indoors, yet the built environment’s profound influence on health remains underexploited in public health policy and practice. 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, whose call to create supportive environments remains largely unrealised. Emerging fields are changing this: salutogenic design shifts focus from disease prevention to actively promoting well-being; urban health research demonstrates measurable impacts of green infrastructure and walkable neighbourhoods; and neuroarchitecture applies neuroscience to understand how spaces affect cognition, emotion and stress. These fields rarely speak to one another — this plenary confronts that gap. Concurrent pressures make the moment critical: surging youth anxiety and depression linked to environmental factors; ageing populations that need cognitive-health and dementia-friendly design; the climate-health nexus of heat islands and air pollution; and deeply unequal access to health-promoting environments. Through a keynote, expert perspectives and live audience engagement, the session explores what the evidence shows about urban design and health, how neuroscience and architecture can inform public health practice, and how public health research can help shape healthier environments — while confronting real tensions between privacy and surveillance, green gentrification and environmental justice, and standardised versus local solutions. Keynote speaker John Zeisel President, The Hearthstone Institute; Loeb Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Design Speakers/Panellists Nils Fietje Behavioural and Cultural Insights Unit, WHO/Europe Andrea De Paiva Neuroscience for Architecture Stefano Capolongo Professor Department of Architecture, Construction Engineering and the Built Environment, Politechnico di Milano
Authors: EUPHA, ECDC, Iveta Nagyova, Irina Ljungqvist
Language: English
Topic: Urban Green Space and Health
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,181
OpenAlex ID: W7223671213