WHYY will show The Media Policy Center's 4 part documentary "Designing Healthy Communities starting July 15 at 2:30 PM, and continuing until Sunday, August 5. 

Dr. Richard Jackson addresses the effects that the "built environment" has on the health of Americans.

"Public health has traditionally associated the “built environment” with issues such as poor sanitation, lead paint poisoning children, workplace safety, fire codes and access for persons with disabilities. If we are what we eat, it can also be said that we are what we build. We now realize that how we design the built environment may hold tremendous potential for addressing many of the nation’s – childhood and adult — current public health concerns. These include obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, depression, violence and social inequities.

Almost everything in our built environment is the way it is because someone designed it that way. The project’s goal is to offer best practice models to improve our nation’s public health by re-designing and restoring our built environment.”Our country faces grave challenges in environment, economy and health. The banquet is over. “Easy oil” has disappeared, so too other resources are being depleted. And global heating increasingly will threaten human and species survival worldwide. Economies built on ever increasing consumption have contracted and secure incomes are unlikely to be available to working people for a long time, if ever. And our medical care costs will continue to escalate for reasons of technology and population aging, but particularly as the tripling of obesity and doubling of diabetes rates show their health and cost effects."

For more information, please visit the Designing Healthy Communities website.