Design for Health
The Design for Health (DFH) project examines how our surroundings — from buildings to green spaces — shape human health. By grounding planning and design in evidence rather than assumption, DFH seeks to understand how environments truly influence well-being and community health outcomes.
About Us
Public-health models indicate that many factors affect human health: biology, individual behavior, social and economic factors, policies and services, and environments. A key aspect of the Design for Health (DFH) project has been clearly identifying how the built environment, including the planted environment, affects health. Often, planners and designers rely on commonsense notions of healthy environments when the healthiness may have far more to do with the kind of people there than the kind of place. Giving the environment its due without overestimating its influence is a major focus of DFH. Key questions include:
- What are the key relationships between the environment and human health?
- What are some important thresholds at which human health is affected?
- How can planning and design improve human health and ameliorate problems?
- Can we develop tools to more clearly connect health and the work of landscape architects, architects and planners?
Work related to Design for Health created scientific studies, research syntheses, health impact assessment tools, evidence based guidelines, information materials, research protocols, training workshops, and image collections.
History
Founded in 2006, Design for Health has involved collaborations that served to bridge the gap between the emerging research base on community design and healthy living and the everyday realities of local planning and community development.
Designed as a project from 2004 to 2006, from 2006 to 2012, DFH created innovative, practice-oriented tools to help integrate human health into urban planning and environmental design in nineteen partner communities in Minnesota and disseminated information about the connections between health and planning. Design for Health was initially led by Professors Ann Forsyth, Kevin Krizek, and Carissa Shively Slotterback at the University of Minnesota. Later affiliated projects co-led by Ann Forsyth include the Health and Places Initiative (phase 1 in 2013-2015 and phase 2 from 2015-2017) and, since 2018, the Healthy Places Design Lab.
Designforhealth.net remains a presence linking to current projects.
Key Resources
Blog
Tools
Resources
Food Access
Mental Health
