Community design indicators and neighbourhood population health

OBJECTIVE – Healthy community design is an emerging paradigm that unites the fields of Urban Planning and Public Health. This study calculates a comprehensive set of community design indicators (CDIs) using open data sets and links results to a wide range of health measures. METHODS – A literature review informed creation of a comprehensive CDI framework and indicators were calculated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for 106 neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Correlations were then evaluated between CDIs and both built environment and health measures from the My Health My Community (MHMC) survey. RESULTS – Several CDIs had moderate correlations with one or more health measures. In particular, there were many associations between CDIs and rates of utilitarian walking and levels of obesity. DISCUSSION – This study supports professional practice related to evidence-based stakeholder engagement and decision-making, performance-based planning and design, measurement of health, economic and environmental performance of communities, and intersectoral collaborations that create a healthy community design vision and action-oriented implementation strategies.