Built Environment and Health

This article complicates the relationship between the built environment and health by introducing destination walking as one of perhaps several feedback loops in a complex conceptual model. The presence or absence of built environment features can strengthen or weaken these loops but may not have as direct an effect on health as has been proposed elsewhere. Figure 1 shows the more traditional linear relationship between built environment, transportation decisions, and physical health, while Figure 2 shows the more complex feedback loop that includes physical health, transportation decisions, perceptions of the built environment, and features of the built environment.