Health by design: building healthy minds and bodies

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

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Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@article{eupha2026health,
  title = {{Health by design: building healthy minds and bodies}},
  author = {EUPHA, ECDC and Iveta Nagyova and Irina Ljungqvist},
  journal = {The European Journal of Public Health},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.005},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.005},
  note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - JOUR
TI  - Health by design: building healthy minds and bodies
AU  - EUPHA, ECDC
AU  - Iveta Nagyova
AU  - Irina Ljungqvist
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/01
JO  - The European Journal of Public Health
DO  - 10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.005
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.005
AB  - 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
SN  - 1101-1262
SN  - 1464-360X
ER  -

Abstract

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